■^(.^ 



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KjJi^ 



MEMORIAL EDITION. 



THE 



Life and Work 



OF 



JAMES A. GARFIELD, 

TWENTIETH PRESIDENT OF. THE UNITED STATES: 

EMBRACING 

AN ACCOUNT OF THE SCENES AND INCIDENTS OF HIS BOYHOOD; THE 
STRUGGLES OF HIS YOUTH ; THE MIGHT OF HIS EARLY MAN- 
HOOD ; HIS VALOR AS A SOLDIER; HIS CAREER 
AS A STATESMAN; HIS ELECTION TO 
THE PRESIDENCY; 



THE TRAGIC STORY OF HIS DEATH. 



JOHN CLARK RIDPATH, LL.D., 

II 

Author of A Popular History of the United States; A Grammar-School History OF THE 

United States; An Inductive Grammar of the English Language, etc. 



Copiously Illustrated. Xb,-!- 



JONES BROTHERS & COMPANY: 

CINCINNATI, PIIILADELPIIIA, CHICAGO, ST. 



J. M. OLCOTT, INDIANAPOLIS; J. C. CHILTON i CO., DETROIT. 

\ V 






COPYRIGHTED, ISSl. BY J. T. JONES. 



PREFACE. 



Dean Swift describes the tomb as a place where savage enmity can 
rend the heart no more. Here, in the ominous shadow of the cypress, 
the faults and foibles of life are forgotten, and the imagination builds a 
shining pathway to the stars. Ascending this with rapid flight, the 
great dead is transfigured as he rises; the clouds close around him, and, 
in the twinkling of an eye, he is set afar on the heights with Miltiades 
and Alexander. 

The tendency to the deification of men is strongest when a sudden 
eclipse falls athwart the disk of a great life at noontide. The pall of 
gloom sweeps swiftly across the landscape, and the beholder, feeling the 
chill of the darkness, mistakes it for the death of nature. So it was 
three hundred years ago when the silent Prince of Orange, the founder 
of Dutch independence, was smitten down in Delft. So it was when the 
peerless Lincoln fell. So it is when Garfield dies by the bullet of an 
assassin. 

No doubt this man is glorified by his shameful and causeless death. 
The contrast between his life and his death is indeed the very irony of 
fate. On the popular imagination he is borne away to Washington and 
Lincoln. He is canonized — the American people will have it so. 

In due season fervor will subside. The keen indignation and poig- 
nant sorrow of this great and sensitive citizenship will at length give 
place to other emotions. The murdered Garfield will then pass through 
an ordeal more trying than any of his life. He will be coolly measured 
and his stature ascertained by those inexorable laws which determine the 
rank and place of both living and dead. No doubt he will suffer loss; 
but there is of James A. Garfield a residuum of greatness — 

Which sliall tire 
• Torture and Time, and breathe though he expire; 

Something unearthly which we deem not of. 
Like the remembered tone of a mute lyre, — 

And this residuum of greatness, whatever it shall be, will constitute the 
Garfield of the future — the Garfield of history. 

(iii) 



iv PREFACE. 

For tlie present there will be — there can but be — a blending of the 
real and the ideal. The glamour of the apotheosis will dazzle the vision 
of those who witnessed it. It is enough, therefore, that the narrative of 
to-day shall be such as befits the universal sentiment. The biographer 
of the future may weigh with more critical exactitude the weakness 
against the greatness, and poise in a more delicate balance the evil 
against the good. 

The following pages embody an effort to present, in foir proportion, 
The Life and Work of J^uies A. Garfield. Such sources of in- 
formation as are at present accessible have been faithfully consulted; and 
it is sincerely hoped, that the outline here given of the personal and pub- 
lic career of the illustrious dead, will be found true to the life. As far 
as practicable in the following pages, the purposes and character of Presi- 
ident Garfield will be determined from his own words. His apothegms 
and sayings, not a few, and his public papers and speeches have alike 
contributed their wealth to the better parts of the volume. The story 
of the President's wounding and death has been gathered from the abun- 
dant sources — official and semi-ofiicial— of the journals and magazines of 
the day. It is hoped that the narrative, as a whole, will not be found 
deficient in interest, or unworthy of the subject. 

This preface would be incomplete if failure should be made to mention 
the invaluable and extensive service rendered the author in the preparation 
of the work, by Messrs. Augustus L. jNIasox, Nathaniel P. Coxrey, 
and Leonard Barney, to whose industry and discriminating taste much 
of whatever merit the book contains, must be accredited. And with this 
acknowledgment should be coupled a like recognition of the spirit of The 
Publishers, who, with their accustomed liberality, have spared no pains 
to illustrate the work in a manner befitting the subject. May all who 
read these pages find in them as full a measure of profit as the author 
has found of pleasure in their preparation. J. C. R. 

Indiaxa Asbury Uxiveesity, 
Xoveniber, 1881. 



COXTEXTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

BIETH AND ANCESTRY. 



PAGES 



" Unto us a child is born." — A lowly home in the wilderness. — Law of 
heredity. — The Kew England stock. — The Garfields. — The Ballous. — 
Trend of the boy mind. — The father's death.— Story of the cause. — The 
widow's struggle. — Life in the Garfield cabin. — Earliest labor. — First 
lessons. — The Garfield family. — Boyhood traits. — The growing stalk. . 11-27 

CHAPTER II. 

THE STKrGGEE OF BOYHOOD. 

A "Western boy of twelve. — "Workland and dreamland. — A carpenter in em- 
bryo. — Summer day and winter day. — The door of bookland opens. — 
"What he saw. — A doubtful farmer. — Possibly something else. — A giant 
of sixteen. — The stage of brigandage. — Pirate or President? — Meanwhile 
a woodchopper. — The sea-vision again. — The great deep takes the form 
of a canal. — Venus : otherwise, the Evening Star. — The glory of the 
tow-path. — Navigation and pugilism. — Diving for pearls. — Leaves the 
sea. — The goblin that shakes us all. — Politics, religion, and grammar. — 
Off to school. — A place called Chester. — Builds a barn. — And then teaches 
a school. — More school. — Joins church. — Oedo. — Possible sweet- 
heart. — Learns elocution. — Hiram rises to view.— An academic course 
of study. — What about college? — Bethany, maybe. — Decides against 
it.— "Why.— Knocks at the door of "Williams 28-58 

CHAPTER III. 

the morning of power. 

College life. — A Junior at "Williams. — Favorite books. — College traditions. — 
A brain of many powers. — "Mountain Day." — Essays in literature. — 
The "Williams Quarterly. — Poems: Memory, Autumn, Charge of the Tight 
Brigade. — A writing-master at intervals. — Free Kansas. — A metaphy- 
sician. — Steps out with honor. — Mark Hopkins. — Becomes a professor at 
HLram. — And then a college president. — His methods and manners. — 
Success as an educator. — ^Lectures and preaches. — A union for life. — 
The chosen mate. — Incipient politics. — First nomination for office. — 

(v) 



VI CONTENTS. 

PAGES 

State senator from Portage and Summit. — Hints at leadership.— -Eises 
in influence. — The approaching conflict. — Ohio makes ready for battle- — 
Independence Day at Ravenna, — Sound of the tocsin. — Vanguard, to 
right and left the front unfokl! 59-87 

CHAPTER IV. 

A SOLDIER OF THE UNION. 

A West Point soldier. — George H. Thomas. — The Union volunteer.— Garfield 
appointed Lieutenant-Colonel. — And then Colonel. -The Forty-second 
Ohio. — Studies war.— Ordered to the front. — Kentucky, wlio shall have 
her?— Marshall says, 7.— Garfield objects.— Don Carlos Buell.— Expedi- 
tion to Catlettsburg.— Pluck to the backbone, Sir.— Will attack Paint- 
ville.— A man called Jordan. — The region and the people. — Harry 
Brown, Esq.— Capture of Paintville.— Battle of Middle Creek.— A big 
victory on a small scale.— Address to the soldiers.— Big Sandy on th'e 
rampage.— Garfield takes a turn at the wheel.— Proclamation to the peo- 
ple of the Valley.— Concerning Pound Gap.— A proposed muster rudely 
broken up.— Exit Humphrey Marshall.— General Orders No. 40.— 
Comments on the campaign , 88-114 

CHAPTER V. 

HERO AND GENERAL. 

Brigadier-General Garfield.— Reports to Buell.— A new field of activity.— 
At Pittsburg Landing. — Stands up for Africa.— Sits on court-martial. — 
Again the goblin shakes us. — But we report at Washington. — Tries Fitz- 
John Porter.— Assigned to Hunter's command.— Appointed chief of stafl" 
to Rosecrans. — The commanding general. — Duties of chief of staff. — 
Personal sketch of Garfield.— Rosecrans dislikes him.— And then likes 
him. — Sheridan's ten-pins. — Garfield issues circular on prison pens. — 
Helps Vallandigham across the border. — Opposes negro insurrection. — 
Stands by Lincoln. — Organizes army police.— Favors in advance. — 
The Tullahoma campaign. — Rosecrans's advance on Chattanooga. — The 
capture.— Position of Bragg.— The big game begun.— Situation and 
preliminaries.— The battle of Chickamauga.— Garfield's part.— Praise 
and promotion.— We are elected to Congress.— And accept .... 115-166 

CHAPTER VI. 

IN THE ASCENDANT. 

The constituency of Garfield.— The old Western Reserve.— Joshua R. Gid- 
dings.— Character of Congress.— Garfield enters the Cave of the Winds. — 
On Military Committee. — Opposes the bounty system. — Favors the 
draft. — Advocates confiscation. — Demolishes A. Long, Esq.— The Wade- 
Davis Manifesto. — A strange renomination. — Advocates the Thirteenth 



CONTENTS, Vll 

PAGES 

Amendment. — Beards Stanton.— The assassination of Lincoln. — Scene 
in New York. — Speech on the Lincoln anniversary. — The temperance 
question. — Defends Milligan and Company. — Advocates a Bureau of 
Education. — Chairman of Committee on Military Affairs. — The visit 
to Europe. — Oration on Decoration Day 167-210 

CHAPTER VII. 

iEADER AND STATESMAN. 

Opposes his constituents on the monej^ question. — Garfield on the Ninth 
Census. — Speaks on Statistics. — Reports on Black Friday. — Speaks on 
Civil Service. — Defends the prerogatives of the House. — An authority on 
Revenue and Expenditure. — Speaks against the McGarraghan Claim. — 
Advocates an Educational Fund. — Opposes inflation of currency. — Dis- 
cusses the railway problem. — An oration on the Elements of Success. — 
Literary views and habits. — Oration on the Life and Character of 
Thomas. — Speech on the Future of the Republic 211-253 

CHAPTER VIII. 

THE NOONTIDE. 

The era of slander. — The Credit Mobilier of America. — Reviewed and answered 
by Garfield. — The so-called Salary Grab. — Trouble in the Western Re- 
serve. — Garfield's defense and vindication. — The DeGollyer pavement 
matter. — Triumphant answer to charges. — Democratic ascendancy of 
1874. — The "Confederate Congress." — Garfield speaks on the Pension 
Bill. — Demolishes Lamar. — Speech on the acceptance of the Winthrop 
and Adams statues. — Opposes the Electoral Commission. — Favors Specie 
Paj^ments. — Proposed for Speaker. — Opposes the Bland Silver Bill. — 
Speech on the Judicial Appropriation Bill. — The payment of United 
States marshals. — Appropriation Bill again. — Elected to the Senate. . 254-307 

CHAPTER IX. 

GREAT QUESTIONS AND GREAT ANSWERS. 

Questions of American statesmanship. — Garfield tested. — Speeches on States 
Rights and National Sovereignty : No Nullification ; Force Bill ; 
Equipoise of Government; Fourteenth Amendment. — Speeches on Fi- 
nance AND Money: The Industrial Revolution; Gold and Silver; 
Currency; Banks; Paper Money ; Resumption Act. — Speeches on Rev- 
enue AND Expenditures: Free Trade and Tariff; Public Expendi- 
tures; War Expenses. — Speeches on Character and Tendency op 
American Institutions: Future of the Republic; Government aird 
Science; Revolution in Congress; Voluntary powers of government; 
Free consent the basis of our laws. — A general estimate of Garfield's 
genius 308-402 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE CLIMAX OF 1880. 

PAGES 

American political parties. — The Third Term question. — The Grant move- 
ment. — Leaders of the Stalwarts. — The political " Machine." — Contrast 
of Garfield and Conkling. — Gathering of the clans. — Grant and Anti- 
Grant. — The Unit Rule.— A truce. — Hoar for Chairman.— Skirmishes. — 
Blaine's forces. — Adjournments. — Gloomy Friday. — Rule VIII. — Put- 
ting in nomination. — Speeches of Frye, Conkling, and Garfield. — The 
balloting. — Garfield and Arthur nominated 403-442 

CHAPTER XL 

CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY. 

Delicate position of a presidential candidate. — The policy of mum.— Gar- 
field's theory of running for office.— He is notified of his nomination. — 
Hoar's speech. — The reply. — The journey to Cleveland. — Reception and 
speech at Hiram.— Address atPainesville.— The shrine of Mentor.— Gar- 
field visits Washington.— Speaks to the people.— At Painesville.— Speech 
at the Dedication of the Soldiers' Monument.— Letter of Acceptance.— 
The issues of the campaign.— Speaks at the Dedication of the Geneva 
Monument.— Visits New York.— At Chatauqua.— Attends reunion at 
Ashland.— Addresses the soldiers at Mentor.— The October election.— 
The saintly pilgrims on their way.— A candidate who dares to talk.— 
Speeches to the pilgrims.— The mud-mill. — Morey ct al.—The machine 
bursts and the millers get the mud. — Judgment Day. — Garfield is 
elected.— Speaks to the Electors of Ohio.— Address to the Carolina Del- 
egation.— Conkling visits Mentor.— The departure for Washington.— 
Last speech at Mentor.— En route for the inauguration 443-485 

CHAPTER XII. 

IN THE HIGH SEAT. 

Morning of the Fourth of March.— Conspiracy of the elements.— Prepara- 
tions.— The procession.— Clears up.— The Grand Ceremony.— Inaugural 
address.— Setting up in business.— The new Cabinet.— The temperance 
question.— The Administration on its feet.- The pro and con of a Called 
Session of Congress. — Nomination of Robertson. — The Refunding 
Question. —Dearth of politics.— Symptoms of a family quarrel.— The is- 
sues involved in it. — The Robertson appointment. — Exeunt Conkling 
and Piatt.— A President who has his own way.— Smoother sailing after 
the storm. — Adjournment of Congress. — Sickness in the White House. — 
Sympathy of the people for Mrs. Garfield.— The Summer, what shall we 
do with it? 486-516 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTEK XIII. 

SHOT DOWN. 

PAGES 

Recovery of Mrs. Garfield. — A great tragedy. — First alarms. — The physicians 
of the President. — The assassin. — The world's sympathy. — A dolorous 
Fourth.— Diagnosis. — Motives of the assassin. — General Arthur. — Favor- 
able progress of the President. — Conkling's letter on murder. — The Pres- 
ident's mental condition. — Sunday.— Heated weather. — The refrigera- 
tors. — Mistaken diagnosis. — Foreign sympathies. — The Induction Bal- 
ance.- -The Mrs. Garfield Fund. — Supposed convalescence. — President 
worse. — Surgical operations. — Sensational dispatches. — Possible ma- 
laria. — Induction Balance again. — Surgeons hopeful. — A second opera- 
tion. — Last letter. — Project of removal. — Dangerous symptoms. — Mrs. 
Garfield. — A good queen. — Cheerful and brave. — The inflamed parotid. — 
Pyaemia feared. — Gradual decline. — Death imminent. — Eemoval deter- 
mined on. — Preparations. — Night scene at Elberon 517-615 

CHAPTER XIV. 

GAZIXG ON THE SEA. 

The President is removed to Long Branch.— Scenes and incidents of the 
journey. — Francklyn Cottage. — Revival of hope. — Great solicitude of 
the people. — Foolish confidence of the surgeons. — The President some- 
what revived.— Great anxiety follows. — The last day.— Fatal chill. — 
Mrs. Garfield's heroism. — The gathering shadows. — Dfeath .... 616-643 

CHAPTER XV. 

THE SOLEMN PAGEANT. 

Preparations for the funeral of the President. — Embalmment. — Accession 
of Gen. Arthur. — The post-mortem. — Astonishing revelations. — An- 
nouncement of the President's death. — The funeral train. — En route for 
Washington. — Lying in state. — Victoria's tribute. — Address of Elder 
Powers. — Viewing the body. — The train for Cleveland.— Reception and 
preparations. — Imposing ceremonies. — The last day. — Closing scenes and 
addresses.— The sepulchre. — Reflections . . . . • 646-672 



DEATHLESS. 



This man hath reared a monument more grand 

Than sculptured bronze, and loftier than the height 

Of regal pyramids in Memphian sand, 

Which not the raging tempest nor the might 
Of the loud North-wind shall assailing blight, 

Nor years unnumbered nor the lapse of time ! 
Not all of him shall perish ! for the bright 

And deathless part shall spui-n iviih foot sublime 

The darkness of the grave — the dread and sunless clime/ 

He shall be sung to all posterity 

With freshening praise, where in the morning's glow 
The farm-boy with his harnessed team shall be, 

And where New England 's swifter rivers flow 

And orange gi'oves of Alabama blow — 
Strong in humility, and great to lead 

A mighty people where the ages go / 
Take then thy station, illustrious dead ! 
And pjlace, Immortal Fame, the garland on his head.! 

— HoKAC£: B. lu., Ode xxx. 



(Xi 



LITE a:nj) woek 



JAMES A. GAPvFIELD. 



CHAPTER I. 

BIRTH AND A^-CESTRY. 

Genius delights in hatching her offspring in out-of-the-way places. — Irving. 

When some great work is waiting to be done, 

And Destiny ransacks the city for a man 

To do it; finding none therein^ she turns 

To the fecundity of Nature's woods, 

And there, beside some Western hill or stream, 

She enters a rude cabin unannounced, 

And ere the rough frontiersman from liis toil, 

Where all day long he hews the thickets down, 

Keturns at evening, she salutes his wife, 

His fair young wife, and says, Behold ! thou art 

The Mother of the Future ! 

MEN, like books, have their beginnings. James Abram Gar- 
field was born on the 19th day of November, 1831. Hi.s 
first outlook upon things was from a cabin door in Cuyahoga 
County, Ohio. The building was of rough logs, with mud l^e- 
tween the cracks, to keep out the winter cold. The single room 
had a puncheon floor, and on one side a large fire-place, with a 
blackened crane for cooking purposes. In winter evenings, a 
vast pile of blazing logs in this fire-place filled the cabin with a 
cheerful warmth and ruddy glow. Overhead, from the rude raft- 
ers, hung rows of well-cured hams, and around the mud chimney 
were long strings of red-pepper pods and dried pumpkins. The 
furniture was as primitive as the apartment. A puncheon table, 
a clumsy cupboard, a couple of large bedsteads, made by driving 

stakes in the floor, some blocks for seats, and a well-kept gun, 

(11) 



12 



LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 



almost complete the catalogue. The windoM's had greased paper 
instead of glass ; and, in rough weather, were kept constantly closed 
with heavy shutters. 

Stepping out of doors, one would see that the cabin stood on 
the edge of a small clearing of some twenty acres. On the south, 
at a little distance, stood a solid log barn, differing from the house 

only in having open 
cracks. The barn-yard 
had a worm fence around 
it, and contained a heavy 
ox-wagon and a feeding- 
trough for hogs. Skirt- 
ing the clearing on all 
sides was the forest i)ri- 
meval, which, on the 19th 
of November, the frost 
had already transfigured 
with gold and scarlet 
splendors. Cold winds 
whistled through the 
THE GARFiF.i.D CABIN. brauchcs, and thick show- 

ers of dry leaves fell rustling to the ground. 

Already the cabin shutters were closed for the winter ; already 
the cattle munched straw and fodder at the barn, instead of roam- 
ing through the forest for tender grass and juicy leaves ; already 
a huge wood-pile appeared by the cabin door. The whole place 
had that sealcd-up look which betokens the approach of winter at 
the farm-house. The sun rose late, hung low in the sky at high 
noon ; and, after feeble effort, sunk early behind the western forest. 
Well for the brave pioneers is it, if they are ready for a long and 
bitter struggle with the winter. 

So much for the home. But what of the family? Who and 
what are they? As the babe sleeps in its mother's arms, what 
prophecy of its destiny is there written in the red pages .of the 
blood ancestral? 

In America, the Southern States have been the land of splendid 




BIRTH AND ANCESTRY.— LAW OF HEREDITY. 13 

hospitality, chivalric manners, and aristocratic lineage; the West 
the land of courage, enterprise, and practical executive ability; 
but the New England States have been preeminently the home 
of intellectual genius and moral heroism. From New England 
came both the father and mother of James A. Garfield, and it 
means much. But there are reasons for looking at his ancestry 
more closely. 

■ The law of heredity has long been suspected, and, in late years, 
has been, to a considerable extent, regarded as the demonstrated and 
universal order of nature. It is the law by which the offspring in- 
herits the qualities and characteristics of its ancestors. It makes 
the oak the same sort of a tree as the parent, from which the seed 
acorn fell. It makes a tree, which sprang from the seed of a large 
peach, yield downy fruit as large and luscious as the juicy ancestor. 
It says that every thing shall produce after its kind; that small 
radishes shall come from the seed of small radishes, and a richly 
perfumed geranium from the slip cut from one of that kind. It 
says that, other things being equal, the descendants of a fast horse 
shall be fast, and the posterity of a plug shall be plugs. It says 
that a Jersey cow, Avith thin ears, straight back, and copious yield 
of rich milk, shall have children like unto herself But a man 
has many more qualities and . possibilities than a vegetable or a 
brute. He has an infinitely wider range, through Avhich his char- 
acteristics may run. The color of his hair, his size, his strength, 
are but the smallest part of his inheritance. He inherits also the 
size and texture of his brain, the shape of his skull, and the skill 
of his hands. It is among his ancestry that must be sought the 
reason and source of his powers. It is there that is largely de- 
termined the question of his capacity for ideas, and it is from his 
ancestry that a man should form his ideas of his capacity. It is 
there that are largely settled the matters of his tastes and temper, 
of his ambitions and his powers. The question of Avhether he 
shall be a mechanic, a tradesman, or a lawyer, is already settled 
before he gets a chance at the problem. 

The old myth about the gods holding a council at the birth of 
every mortal, and determining his destiny, has some truth in it 



14 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAKFIELD. 

lu one respect it is wrong. The council of the gods is held years 
before his birth ; it has been in session all the time. If a man 
has musical skill, he gets it from his ancestry. It is the same 
with an inventor, or an artist, or a scholar, or a preacher. This 
looks like the law of fate. It is not. It is the fate of law. 

But this is not all of the law of inheritance. Men have an in- 
herited moral nature, as well as an intellectual one. Drunken- 
ness, sensuality, laziness, extravagance, and pauperism, arc handed 
down from father to son. Appetites are inherited, and so are 
habits. On the other hand, courage, energy, self-denial, the power 
of work, are also transmitted and inherited. If a man's ancestry 
were thieves, it will not do to trust him. If they were bold, true, 
honest men and women, it will do to rely upon him. 

In late years, this law of inheritance has been much studied by 
scientists. The general law is about as has been stated; but it 
has innumerable offsets and qualifications which are not under- 
stood. Sometimes a child is a compound of the qualities of both 
parents. More frequently the son resembles the mother, and the 
daughter the father. Sometimes the child resembles neither par- 
ent, but seems to inherit every thing from an uncle or aunt. Often 
the resemblance to the grand-parent is the most marked. That 
these complications are governed by fixed, though, at present, un- 
known laws, can not be doubted ; but for the purposes of biog- 
raphy the question is unessential. 

Scientists say that nine-tenths of a man's genius is hereditary, 
and one-tenth accidental. The inherited portion may appear large, 
but it is to be remembered that only possibiUties are inherited, and 
that not one man in a million reaches the limit of his possibilities. 
If the lives of the ancestors of James A. Garfield were studied, 
we could tell w^hat his possibilities were ; while, by studying the 
life of Garfield himself, we see how nearly he realized those pos- 
sibilities. This is the reason why biography interests itself in a 
man's ancestors. They furnish the key to the situation. 

Of the many classes of colonists who settled this continent, by 
far the most illustrious were the Puritans and the Huguenots. 
Their names, alike invented as epithets of contempt and derision, 



BIETH AXD.ANCESTEY.— THE GARFIELDS. 15 

have become the brightest on the historic page. Their fame rests 
upon their sacrifices. Not for gold, nor adventure, nor discovery, 
did they seek the forest-wrapped continent of North America, but 
for the sake of worshiping God according to the dictates of their 
own consciences. Diiferent in nationality, language, and tempera- 
ment — the one from the foggy isle of England, the other from the 
sunny skies of France — they alike fled from religious persecution ; 
the Puritan from that intolerance and bigotry which cost Charles 
I. his head and revolutionized the English monarchy ; the Hugue- 
not from the withdrawal of the last vestige of religious liberty by 
Louis XIV. The proudest lineage which an American can trace 
is to one or the other of these communities of exiles. — In James 
A. Garfield these t^vo currents of noble and heroic blood met and 
mingled. 

The first ancestor, by the name of Garfield, of whom the family 
have any record, is Edward Garfield, a Puritan, who, for the sake 
of conscience, in 1636, left his home near the boundary line of 
England and Wales, and joined the colony of the distinguished 
John Winthrop, at AVatertown, Massachusetts. He appears to 
have been a plain fiirmer, of deep, religious convictions, and much 
respected by the community in which he lived. Of his ancestry, 
only two facts are known. One is that no book of the peerage or 
list of English nobility ever contained the name of Garfield. The 
other is that, at some time in the past, possibly during the Cru- 
sades, the family had received, or adopted, a coat of arms. The 
device Avas a golden shield crossed by three crimson bars ; in one 
corner a cross ; in another a heart ; above the shield an arm and 
hand grasping a sword. A Latin motto, " In cnice vinco," — " In 
the cross I conquer," — completed the emblem. It is probable that 
the family had been soldiers, not unlikely in a religious war. The 
wife of Edward Garfield was a fair-haired girl from Germany.— 
To the brave heart and earnest temper of the Welshman, was added 
the persistence and reflectiveness of the German mind. Of their 
immediate descendants, but little can be told. Like the ancestor 
they were 

"To fortunp and to fame unknown." 



16 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

But they were honest and respected citizens — tillers of the soil 
— not infrequently holding some local position as selectman or 
captain of militia. Five, of the lineal descendants are said to 
sleep in the beautiful cemetery in Watertown, "careless alike of 
sunshine and of storm." 

Tracing the family history down to the stirring and memorable 
period of the American Revolution, the name which has now be- 
come historic emerges from obscurity. The spirit of Puritanism, 
which had braved the rigors of life in the colonies rather than 
abate one jot of its intellectual liberty, nourished by hardship and 
strengthened by misfortune, had been handed down by the law of 
inheritance through eight peaceful generations. It was the spirit 
which resented oppression, demanded liberty, and fought for prin- 
ciple till the last dollar was spent, and the last drop of blood was 
shed in her cause. 

We might have calculated on the descendants of the Puritan 
colonist being in the front of battle from the very outbreak of the 
War for Independence. It was so. They were there. They 
were the kind of men to be there. Abraham Garfield, great-uncle 
of the President, took part in the first real battle of the Revolu- 
tion, the fight at Concord Bridge, which fixed t\\e status of the 
Colonies as that of rebellion. On the fourth day afler the blood- 
letting the following affidavit was drawn up and sworn to before a 
magistrate : 

Lexington, April 23, 1775. 

" We, John Hoar, John Whithead, Abraham Garfield, Benjamin Mun- 
roe, Isaac Parker, William Hosmer, John Adams, Gregory Stone, all 
of Lincoln, in the County of Middlesex, ]\Iassachusetts Bay, all of law- 
ful age, do testify and say, that on Wednesday last, we were assembled 
at Concord, in the morning of said day, in consequence of information 
received that a brigade of regular troops were on their march to the 
said town of Concord, who had killed six men at the town of Lexing- 
ton. About an hour afterwards we saw them approaching, to the num- 
ber, as we apprehended, of about 1,200, on which we retreated to a 
hill about eighty rods back, and the said troops then took possession of 
the hill where we were first posted. Presently after this we saw the 
troops moving toward the North Bridge, about one mile from the said 



BIKTH AND ANCESTRY.— THE GAEFIELDS. 17 

Concord meeting-house; we then immediately went before them and 
passed the bridge, just before a party of them, to the number of about two 
hundred, arrived ; they there left about one-half of their two hundred at 
the bridge, and proceeded with the rest toward Col. Barrett's, about two 
miles from the said bridge ; and the troops that were stationed there, ob- 
serving our approach, marched back over the bridge and then took up 
some of the planks ; we then hastened our march toward the bridge, and 
when we had got near the bridge they fired on our men, first three guns, 
one after the other, and then a considerable number more; and then, and 
not before (having orders from our commanding officers not to fire till 
Ave were fired upon), we fired upon the regulars and they retreated. 
On their retreat through the town of Lexington to Charlestown, they 
ravaged and destroyed private property, and burnt three houses, one 
barn, and one shop." 

The act of signature to that paper was one of the sublimest 
courage. It identified the leaders of the fight ; it admitted and 
justified the act of firing on the troops of the government ! It 
seemed almost equal to putting the executioner's noose around 
their necks. But to such men, life was a feather-weight compared 
to principle. If the Colonies were to be roused to rebellion and 
revolution, the truth of that fight at Concord bridge had to be 
laid before the people, accompanied by proofs that could not be 
questioned. The patriots not only did the deed but shouldered 
the responsibility. Of the signers wdth Abraham Garfield, John 
Hoar was the great-grandfather of Senator George F. Hoar, pre- 
siding officer of the convention which nominated James A. Gar- 
field for the Presidency. 

Solomon Garfield, brother of Abraham, and great-grandfather 
of the subject of this history, had married Sarah Stimpson in 
1766, and was living at Weston, Massachusetts, when the war 
broke out. Little is known of him except that he was a soldier 
of the Revolution, and came out of the war alive, but impover- 
ished by the loss of his property. He soon moved to Otsego 
County, New York, where one of his sons, Thomas Garfield, mar- 
ried. It was on the latter's farm, in December, 1799, that was 
born Abram Garfield, the ninth lineal descendant of the Puritan, 
and father of the man whose name and fame are henceforth the 



18 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

heritage of all mankind. Two years after the birth of Abram, 
his father died suddenly and tragically, leaving his young widow 
and several children in most adverse circumstances. When about 
twelve years old, Abram, a stout sun-burnt little fellow, fell in 
with a playmate two years younger than himself, named Eliza 
Ballou, also a widow's child whose mother had recently moved to 
Worcester, Otsego County, New York, where the Garfields were 
living. In that childhood friendship lay the germ of a romantic 
love, of which the fruit was to be more important to men and to 
history than that of the most splendid nuptials ever negotiated in 
the courts of kings. 

James Ballou, Eliza's older brother, impatient of the wretched 
poverty in which they dwelt, persuaded his mother to emigrate to 
Ohio. The emigrant wagon, with its jaded horses, its muddy 
white cover, its much jostled load of household articles, and its 
sad-eyed and forlorn occupants ! How the picture rises before the 
eyes ! What a history it tells of poverty and misfortune ; of dis- 
appointment and hardship ; of a wretched home left behind, yet 
dear to memory because left behind ; of a still harder life ahead in 
the western wilderness tow^ard which it wends its weary way ! 
More showy equipages there have been. The Roman chariot, the 
English stage-coach, and the palace railway train, have each been 
taken up and embalmed in literature. But the emigrant wagon, 
richer in association, closer to the heart-throb, more familiar with 
tears than smiles, has found no poet who would stoop to the lowly 
theme. In a few years the emigrant wagon will be a thing of 
the past, and forgotten ; but though we bid it farewell forever, let it 
have a high place in the American heart and history, as the pre- 
cursor of our cities and our civilization. 

Thus the boy and girl were separated. Abram Garfield was 
brought up as a " bound boy" by a farmer named Stone. While 
he was filling the place of chore boy on the New York farm, Eliza 
Ballou, having something more than an ordinary education, taught 
a summer school in the Ohio wilderness. It is said that one 
day, in a terrific storm, a red bolt of lightning shot through the 
cabin roof, smiting teacher and scholars to the floor, thuij breaking 



BIRTH AND ANCESTRY.— THE BALLOUS. 19 

up the school. The spirit of tragedy seems to have hovered over 
her entire life. 

Love laughs at difficulties and delays, and in a few years after 
the Ballon emigration, Abram Garfield, a " stalwart " of the earlier 
and better kind, tramped his muddy way along the same roads, 
across the same rivers, and — strange, was it not ? — to the very cabin 
where the emigrant wagon had stopped. SAvift flew the shining 
days of courtship ; and Eliza Ballon became Eliza Ballon Garfield, 
the mother of the President. 

Eliza Ballon was a lineal descendant of Maturin Ballon, a French 
Huguenot, who, about the year 1685, upon the Revocation of the 
Edict of Nantes, fled from the smiling vineyards of France to the 
rugged but liberty-giving land of America. Joining- the colony of 
Roger Williams, at Cumberland, Rhode Island, which had adopted 
for its principle " In civil matters, law ; in religious matters, lib- 
erty," he built a queer old church, from the pulpit of which he 
thundered forth his philippics against religious intolerance. The 
building still stands, and is a curiosity of architecture. Not a nail 
was used in its construction. For generation after generation the 
descendants of this man were eloquent preachers, occupying the 
very pulpit of their ancestor. Their names arc famous. They 
were men of powerful intellects, thorough culture, and splendid 
characters. Their posterity has enriched this country with many 
distinguished laAAyers, soldiers, and politicians. They were a su- 
perior family from the first, uniting to brilliant minds a spotless 
integrity, an indomitable energy, and the burning and eloquent 
gifts of the orator. The best known member of the family is Rev. 
Hosea Ballou, the founder of the Universalist Church in America, 
of whom Eliza Ballou was a grand-niece. He was a man of wide 
intellectual activity, a prolific and powerful writer, and made a 
marked impress on the thought of his generation. 
- From this brief view of the ancestry of James A. Garfield, it is 
easy to see that there was the hereditary preparation for a great 
man. From the father's side came great physical power, large 
bones, big muscles, and an immense brain. From the father's line 
also came the heritage of profound conviction, of a lofty and re- 



20 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

sistless courage, whicli was ready anywhere to do and die for the 
truth, and of the exhaustless patience which was the product of 
ten generations of tilling the soil. On the other hand, the Bal- 
lous were small of stature, of brilliant and imaginative minds, of 
imjietuous and energetic temperament, of the finest grain, physically 
and mentally. They were scholars ; people of books and culture, 
and, above all, they were orators. From them, albeit, came the 
intellectual equipment of their illustrious descendant. From the 
mother, Garfield inherited the love of books, the capacity for 
ideas, the eloquent tongue, and the tireless energy. To the ear- 
nest solidity and love of liberty of the Welshman, Edward Garfield, 
mixed with the reflective thought of the fair-haired German wife, 
was added the characteristic clearness and vivacity of the French 
mind. 

The trend of Garfield's mind could not have been other than 
deeply religious. The Ballous, for ten generations, had been 
preachers. No man could combine in himself the Puritan and 
Huguenot without being a true worshiper of God. On the other 
hand, while Puritans and Huguenots were at first religious sects, 
their struggles were with the civil power ; so that each of them in 
time became the representative of the deepest political life of their 
respective nationalities. Through both father and mother, there- 
fore, came a genius for politics and affairs of state ; the conserva- 
tism of the sturdy Briton being quickened by the radicalism, the 
genius for reform which belongs to the mercurial Frenchman. 
From both parents would also come a liberality and breadth of 
mind, which distinguishes only a few great historic characters. 
The large, slow moving, good natured Garfields were by tempera- 
ment far removed from bigotry ; while the near ancestor of the 
mother had been excommunicated from the Baptist Church, be- 
cause he thought God was merciful enough to save all mankind 
from the flames of ultimate perdition. 

In Garfield's ancestry there was also a vein of military genius. 
The coat of arms, the militia captaincy of Benjamin Garfield, the 
affidavit of Abraham at Concord bridge, are the outcroppings on 
the father's side. The mother was a near relative of General llufus 



BIETH AND ANCESTEY.— A CATASTEOPHE. 21 

Ingalls ; and her brother, for "whom the President was named, was 
a brave soldier in the war of 1812. 

These, then, are some of the prophecies which had been spoken 
of the child that was born in the Garfield cabin in the fall of 
1831. Future biographers will, perhaps, make more extended in- 
vestigations, but we have seen something, in the language of the 
dead hero himself, "of those latent forces infolded in the spirit 
of the new-born child ; forces that may date back centuries and 
find their origin in the life and thoughts and deeds of remote an- 
cestors; forces, the germs of \vhich, enveloped in the awful mys- 
tery of life, have been transmitted silently from generation to gen- 
eration, and never perish." As we pursue his history we will see 
these various forces cropping out in his career; at one time the 
scholar, at another, the preacher ; at others, the soldier, the orator, 
or the statesman, but always, always the man. 

For two years after the birth of their youngest child James, the 
lives of Abram and Eliza Garfield flowed on peacefully and hope- 
fully enough. The children were growing; the little farm im- 
proving ; new settlers were coming in daily ; and there began to 
be much expected from the new system of internal improvements. 
AVith happy and not unhopeful hearts they looked forward to a 
future of comfortable prosperity. But close by the cradle gapes 
the grave. Every fire-side has its tragedy. In one short hour 
this happy, peaceful life had fled. The fire fiend thrust his torch 
into the dry forests of north-western Ohio, in the region of the 
Garfield home. In an instant, the evening sky was red wath 
flame. It was a moment of horror. Sweeping on through the 
blazing tree-tops with the speed of the wind came the tornado of 
fire. Destruction seemed at hand, not only of crops and fences, 
but of barns, houses, stock, and of the people themselves. In 
this emergency, the neighbors for miles around gathered under 
the lead of Abram Garfield to battle for all that was near and 
dear. A plan of work was swiftly formed. Hour after hour 
they toiled with superhuman eifort. Choked and blinded by vol- 
umes of smoke, with scorched hands and singed brows, they 
fought the flames hand to hand till, at last, the current of death 



22 LIFE OF JAMES A. CxARFIELD. 

was turned aside. The little neighborhood of settlers was saved. 
But the terrific exertions put forth by Abram Garfield had ex- 
hausted him beyond the reach of recuperation. Returning home, 
from the night of toil, and incautiously exposing himself, he was 
attacked with congestion of the lungs. Every effort to relieve the 
suiferer was made by the devoted wife. Every means known to her 
was used to rally the exhausted vitality, but in vain. Chill followed 
chill. The vital powers were exhausted, and the life-tide ebbed fast 
away. In a few hours the rustle of black wings was heard in that 
lowly home in the wilderness. Calling his young wife to him he 
whispered, " Eliza, you will soon be alone. We have planted four 
saplings here in these woods ; I leave them to your care," One last 
embrace from the grief-stricken wife and children ; one more look 
through the open door at the little clearing and the circling forest, 
over which the setting sun was throwing its latest rays, and the he- 
roic spirit had departed. Little by little the darkness of the night 
without came in and mingled with the darkness of the night within. 
Though stunned by this appalling calamity, Eliza Ballou Gar- 
field, true to the heroic ancestry from which she sprung, took up 
the burden of life with invincible courage. The prospect was a 
hard one. Of the four children, the oldest, Thomas, was ten 
years of age ; the two little girls ranged at seven and four, and the 
blue-eyed baby, James, had seen only twenty months. On the 
other hand, the widow's resources were scanty indeed. The little 
farm was only begun. To make a farm in a timber country is a 
life task for the stoutest man. Years and years of arduous toil 
would be required to fell the timber, burn the stumps, grub out 
the roots, and fence the fields before it could really be a farm. 
Worse than this, the place was mortgaged. The little clearing of 
twenty acres, with the imperfect cultivation which one weak wom- 
an, unaided, could give it, had to be depended on, not only to 
furnish food for herself and the four children, but to pay taxes 
and interest on the mortgage, and gradually to lessen the princi- 
pal of the debt itself The pioneer population of the country was 
as poor as herself, hardly able to raise sufficient grain for bread, 
and reduced almost to starvation by the failure of a single crop. 



BIRTH AND ANCESTRY.— THE "WIDOW'S STRUGGLE. 23 

So fearful were the odds against the phicky little widow that her 
friends pointed out the overwhelming difficulties of the situation, 
and earnestly advised her to let her children be distributed among 
the neighbors for bringing up. Firmly but kindly she put aside 
their well-meant efforts. AVith invincible courage and an iron 
will, she said : " ]My family must not be separated. It is my 
wish and duty to raise these children myself. Xo one can care 
for them like a mother." It is from such a mother that great 
men are born. She lost no time in irresolution, but plunged at 
once into the roughest sort of men's labor. The wheat-field was 
only half fenced ; the precious harvest which was to be their suste- 
nance through the winter was still ungathered, and would be de- 
stroyed by roving cattle, which had been turned loose during the 
forest fires. The emergency had to be met, and she met it. 
Finding in the woods some trees, fresh fallen beneath her hus- 
band's glittering ax, she commenced the hard work of splitting 
rails. At first she succeeded poorly ; her hands became blistered, 
her arms sore, and her heart sick. But with practice she im- 
proved. Her small arms learned to swing the maul with a steady 
stroke. Day by day the worm fence crawled around the wheat 
field, until the ends met. 

The highest heroism is not that which manifests itself in some 
single great and splendid crisis. It is not found on the battle- 
field where regiments dash forward upon blazing batteries, and in 
ten minutes are either conquerors or corpses. It is not seen at 
the stake of martyrdom, where, for the sake of opinion, men for a 
few moments endure the unimaginable tortures of the flames. It 
is not found in the courtly tournaments of the past, where knights, 
in glittering armor, flung the furious lance of defiance into the 
face of their foe. Splendid, heroic, are these all. But there is 
a heroism grander still ; it is the heroism which endures, not 
merely for a moment, but through the hard and bitter toils of a 
life-time ; which, when the inspiration of the crisis has passed 
away, and weary years of hardship stretch their stony path before 
tired feet, cheerfully takes up the burden of life, undaunted and 
undismayed. In all the annals of the brave, who, in all times, 



24 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

have suifered and endured, there is no scene more touching than 
the picture of this widow toiling for her chiklren. 

The annals of this period of life in the Garfield cabin are sim- 
ple. But biography, when it has for its theme one of the loftiest 
men that ever lived, loves to busy itself with the details of his 
childhood and to try to trace in them the indications of future great- 
ness. The picture of that life has been given by the dauntless 
woman herself. In the spring of the year, the little corn patch 
was broken up with an old-fashioned wooden plow with an iron 
share. At first the ox-team was mostly driven by the widow 
herself, but Tom, the oldest boy, soon learned to divide the labor. 
The baby was left with his older sister, while the mother and 
older son worked at the plow, or dragged a heavy tree branch — 
a primitive harrow — over the clods. When the seed was to be 
put in, it was by the same hands. The garden, with its precious 
store of potatoes, beans, and cabbages, came in for no small share 
of attention, for these were the luxuries of the frugal table. From 
the first Tom was able largely to attend to the few head of 
stock on the little place. When a hog was to be killed for cur- 
ing, some neighbor was given a share to perform the act of 
slaughter. The mysteries of smoking and curing the various 
parts were well understood by Mrs. Garfield. At harvest, also, the 
neighbors would lend a hand, the men helping in the field, and 
the women at the cabin preparing dinner. Of butter, milk, and 
eggs, the children always had a good supply, even if the table 
was in other respects meager. There was a little orchard, planted 
by the father, which thrived immensely. In a year or two the 
trees were laden with rosy fruit. Cherries, plums, and apples 
peeped out from their leafy homes. The gathering was the chil- 
dren's job, and they made it a merry one. 

From the first the Garfield children performed tasks beyond their 
years. Corn-planting, weed-pulling, potato-digging, and the count- 
less jobs which have to be performed on every farm, were shared 
by them. The first winter was one of the bitterest pri\'ation. The 
supplies were so scanty that the mother, unobserved by the four 
hungry little folks, would often give her share of the meal to them. 



BIKTH AND ANCESTRY.— EARLIEST LESSON. 25 

But after the first winter, the bitter edge of poverty wore oif. The 
executive ability of the little widow began to tell on the family 
affairs. In the following spring, the mortgage on the place was 
canceled by selling oif fifty of the eighty acres. In the absence 
of money, the mother made exchanges of work — sewing for grocer- 
ies, spinning for cotton, and washing for shoes. In time, too, the 
children came to be a valuable help. 

But though this life was busy and a hard one, it was not all 
that occupied the attention of the family. The Garfield cabin had 
an inner life ; a life of thought and love as well as of economy and 
work. Mrs. Garfield had a head for books as well as business. 
Her husband and herself had been members of the Church of the 
Disciples, followers of Alexander Campbell. In her widowhood, 
for years she and her children never missed a sabbath in attending 
the church three miles away. If ever there was an earnest, honest 
Christian, Eliza Garfield was one. A short, cheerful prayer each 
morning, no matter how early she and the children rose, a word of 
thankfulness at the beginning of every meal, no matter how meager, 
and a thoughtful, quiet Bible-reading and prayer at night, formed 
part of that cabin life. Feeling keenly the poor advantages of the 
children in the way of education, she told them much of history 
and the world, and thus around her knee they learned from the 
loving teacher lessons not taught in any college. AVhen James 
was five years old, his older sister for awhile carried him on her 
back to the log school-house, a mile and a half distant, at a place 
dignified with the name of a village, though it contained only a 
store, blacksmith shop, and the school. But the school was too 
far away. The enterprise of ISIrs. Garfield was nowhere better 
shown than in her offering the land, and securing a school-house 
on her own farm. She was determined on her children having the 
best education the wilderness afforded, and they had it. 

But the four children were strangely different. They had the 
same ancestry, and the same surroundings. Who could have 
foretold the wide difference of their destinies? The girls were 
cheerful, industrious, and loving. They were fair scholars at the 
country school, and were much thought of in the neighborhood. 



26 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

At a very early age they took from the tired mother's shoulders a 
large share of the work of the little household. They carded, 
spun, wove, and mended the boys' clothes when they were but 
children themselves. They beautified the rough little home, and 
added a cheery joy to its plain surroundings. They were superior 
to the little society in which they mingled, but not above it. 
There were apple-parings, corn-huskings, quilting-bees, apple- 
butter and maple-sugar boilings, in which they were the ring- 
leaders of mischief — romping, cheerful, healthy girls, happy in 
spite of adversity, ambitious only to make good wives and 
mothers. 

Thomas, the elder brother, was a Garfield out and out. He was 
a plodding, self-denying, quiet boy, with the tenderest love for his 
mother, and without an ambition beyond a farmer's life. When 
the other children went to school, he staid at home " to work," he 
said, "so that the girls and James might get an education." For 
himself he " would do without it." Wise, thoughtful, and patient, 
he was the fit successor of the generations of Garfields who had 
held the plow-handle before he was born. Without a complaint, 
of his own will he worked year after year, denying himself every 
thing that could help his brother James to education and an ambi- 
tious manhood. For from the first, mother and children felt that 
in the youngest son lay the hope of the family. 

James took precociously to books, learning to read early, and 
knowing the English reader almost by heart at eight years of age. 
His first experience at the school built on the home farm is worth 
noting. The seats were hard, the scene new and exciting, and his 
stout little frame tingled with restrained energy. He squirmed, 
twisted, writhed, peeped under the seats and over his shoulder; 
lied his legs in a knot, then untied them ; hung his head backwards 
till the blood almost burst forth, and in a thousand ways manifested 
his restlessness. Reproofs did no good. At last the well-mean- 
ing teacher told James's mother that nothing could be made of the 
boy. With tears in her eyes the fond, ambitious mother talked to 
the little fellow that night in the fire-light. The victory was a 
triumph of love. The boy returned to school, still restless, but 



BIRTH AND ANCESTRY.— BOYHOOD TRAITS. 27 

studious as well. At the end of the term he received a copy of 
the New Testament as a prize for being the best reader in the 
school. The restlessness, above mentioned, seems to have followed 
him through life. Sleeping with his brother he would kick the 
cover off at night, and then say, ''Thomas, cover me up." A mil- 
itary friend relates that, during the civil war, after a day of terri- 
ble bloodshed, lying with a distinguished officer, the cover came 
off in the old way, and he murmured in his sleep, " Thomas, cover 
me up." Wakened by the sound of his own voice, he became 
aware of what he had said ; and then, thinking of the old cabin 
life, and the obscure but tender-hearted brother, General Garfield 
burst into tears, and wept himself to sleep. 

The influences surrounding the first ten or twelve years of life 
are apt to be underestimated. But it can not be doubted that the 
lessons of child-life learned iu the cabin and on the little flirm had 
more to do with Garfield's future greatness than all his subsequent 
education. Like each of his parents, he was lefl without a father 
at the age of two years. If any one class of men have more uni- 
versally risen to prominence than another it has been widow's 
sons. The high sense of responsibility, the habits of economy and 
toil, are a priceless experience. None is to be pitied more than 
the child of luxury and fortune, and no one suspects his disadvan- 
tages less. Hated poverty is, after all, the nursery of greatness. 
The discipline which would have crushed a weak soul only served 
to strengthen the rugged and vigorous nature of this boy. 

The stories which come down to us of Garfield's childhood, 
though not remarkable, show that he was different from the boys 
around him. He had a restless, aspiring mind, fond of strong food. 
Every hint of the outside world fascinated him, and roused the 
most pertinacious curiosity. Yet to this wide-eyed interest in 
what lay outside of his life this shock-haired, bare-legged boy 
added an indomitable zeal for work. From dawn to dark he 
toiled; but whether chopping wood, working in the field or at 
the barn, it was always with the idea and inspiration that he was 
'* helping mother." Glorious loyalty of boyhood ! 



28 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE STRUGGLE OF BOYHOOD. 

Soc)n(€s. — Alcibiades, Mhat sayest thou that is, passing between us and yon -wall? 

Akibiades. — I should call it a thing; some call it a boy. 

Soc. — Xay, I call it neither a thing nor a boy, but rather a young man. By 
Hercules, if I should go further, I should say that that being is a god in embryo ! 

Ale. — You are my master, Socrates, or I should say that nature would have hard 
work to hatch a god out of such an object. 

Soc. — Most men are fools, Alcibiades, because they are unable to discover in the 
germ, or even in the growing stalk, the vast possibilities of development. They 
forget the beauty of growth ; and, therefore, they reckon not that nature and dis- 
cipline are able to make yon boy as one of the immortals. 

SO the child James Garfield advanced into the golden age of 
boyhood. This period we will now briefly live over after him. 
Springtime deepens into early summer; the branches and the leaves 
are swollen with life's young sap ; what manner of fruit will this 
growing tree offer the creative sun to work upon? 

The young lad, in whom our interest centers, was now, in the 
autumn of 1843, twelve years old, when something new came into 
his life, and gave to him his first definite and well-fixed purpose. 
He had always, and by nature, been industrious. In that little 
farm home, where poverty strove continually to carry the day 
against the combined forces of industry and economy, no service 
was without its value. And, therefore, it had doubtless been a 
delight to all in that narrow circle to observe in James the qual- 
ities of a good worker. He seemed a true child of that wonder- 
ful western country which is yet so young, and so able to turn its 
energies to advantage in every available way. So, while still too 
young to " make a hand " at any thing, James had found his place 
wherever there was demand for such light duties as he was able 
to perform. At field, barn or cabin, in garden or in kitchen, place 
there was none where the little fellow's powers were not exercised. 



THE STRUGGLE OF BOYHOOD.— A CARPENTER. 



29 



Instinct with forces larger than his frame, development of them 
Avas inevitable. 

But now a great event in the family took place. Thomas, who 
had j'l-st attained his majority, had returned from a trip to Mich- 




GARFIEI-D AT .SIXTEEN. 



igan with a sum of ready money, and wanted to build his mother 
a new house. Life in the cabin had, in his estimation, been en- 
dured long enough. Some of the materials for a frame building 
were already accumulated, and under the directions of a carpenter 
the work was begun and rapidly pushed to completion. In all 
these proceedings James took an inten.se interest, and developed 
such a liking for tools and timber as could but signify a member 



30 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

of the Builders' Guild. He resolved to be a carpenter; and from 
this day on was never for a moment without an object in life. 

The ambition to "be something" took many different turns, 
but was a force which, once created, could never be put down. 
The care and skill requisite to putting a house together, fitting the 
rafters into place, and joining part to j)art with mathematical pre- 
cision, gave him an idea that these things were of a higher order 
than farm labor. Plain digging would no longer do ; there must 
be a better chance to contrive something, to conjure up plans and 
ways and means in the brain, and show forth ideas by the skill 
of the hand. Consequently a variety of tools began to accumulate 
about James Garfield. There was a corner somewhere which, in 
imitation of the great carpenter who built their house, he called 
his " shop ; " a rough bench, perhaps, with a few planes, and mal- 
lets, and. chisels, and saws, and the like, to help in mending the 
gates and doors about the place. No independent farm can get 
along without such help, and of course these services were in con- 
stant demand. 

The dexterity thus acquired soon led to earnings abroad. The 
first money Garfield ever received in this way was one dollar, 
which the village carpenter paid him for planing a hundred boards 
at a cent apiece. His active and earnest performance of every 
duty brouglit him plenty of offers, and between the ages of twelve 
and fifteen years he helped to put up a number of buildings in that 
district of country, some of which are standing to this day. 

Thus this young life passed away the precious time of the early 
teens. Work and study ; study and work. Hands and feet, mar- 
row and muscle, all steadily engaged in the rugged discipline of 
labor, battling with nature for subsistence. But time rolls on; 
childhood fast recedes from that glory from the other side 
which fringes the dawn ; and, as we move on, every rising sun 
wakes up a new idea. While our young friend gave his attention 
and strength to industry, his imagination began to live in a new 
world. He had been to school, and still went a few months each 
year; and the following incident will indicate what a good-hearted, 
bright school-boy he was. There was a spelling-match in the lit- 



THE STKUGGLE OF BOYHOOD.— AT SCHOOL. 31 

tie log school-house, in which James, who was thirteen years old, 
took part. The teacher told the scholars that if they whispered 
she would send them home. The lad standing next to James got 
confused, and to help him James told him how to spell the word. 
The teacher saw this, and said : " James, you know the rule ; you 
must go home." James picked up his cap and left. In a very 
few seconds he returned and took his place in the class. " Why, 
how is this, James? I told you to go home," said his teacher! 
" I know it, and I went home," said James. 

But the log school-house, with its mystery of the three E's, was 
not sufficient. James was one of the boys who are born to the 
love of books. Whatever had an intelligent aspect, whatever 
thing had the color and glow of an idea, was by nature attract- 
ive to his mind, and this he sought with eagerness and zeal. 
Therefore, even before the boy could read, his mother had read 
to him ; and afterwards winter evening and leisure summer hour 
alike went swiftly by. The scholar in him hungered for the 
scholar's meat and drink; which means books, and books, and 
never enough of them. 

These people did not have many volumes, but they used them 
only the more, and knew them the better. Among them all, first 
in their affections, was the Bible. The woman, whose staff at 
eighty, when bowed down under the great sorrow, was the Ever- 
lasting Word, loved the Bible in her youth, and led her children 
to it as to a fountain of pure water. Thus James early acquired 
some knowledge of the old Bible stories, thid it is said was some- 
what fond of showing his superior learning. This he did by ask- 
ing his little friends profound questions, such as: "Who slew 
Absalom?" " What cities were destroyed with fire and brimstone 
from the sky?" And when all had professed ignorance, he would 
invite their admiration by a revelation of the facts. 

At this period of time, however, it is likely that his lively im- 
agination was more vividly impressed with two or three other 
books which had found their places on the book-shelf of the 
house— books of adventure, with their thrilling scenes, their deeds 
of danger, dashing and gallant. And accordingly it is related 



32 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

that about this time James Garfield became deeply interested in 
the life of Napoleon, as told by Grimshaw. How eagerly he must 
have followed out the magical story of that wonderful career of 
glory and blood through all its varied windings; seeing first a 
young Corsican lieutenant on the road to Paris, by sudden and 
brilliant successes rising quickly, step by step, but ever on the run, 
to be First Consul of the new French Republic, and then Em- 
peror. Austerlitz, its carnage, its awful crisis, and its splendid 
victory ; the terrible Russian campaign, with the untold horrors 
of that memorable retreat before the fierce troops of Cossack rid- 
ers ; on, and ever on through the changing fields of bright trans- 
figurations and the Cimmerian darkness of defeat, down to the fell 
catastrophe at Waterloo, — and young Garfield lived and moved in 
it all, like an old soldier of the Imperial Legion. Another brave 
old book he knew was a " Life of Marion," which had the added 
interest of telling the story of our own first great struggle for lib- 
erty. No wonder then, that, with such food for Avild fancies as 
these at hand, James felt in his veins the hot blood of a martial 
hero, and resolved aloud, before his laughing relatives, that he 
meant to " be a soldier, and win great battles, as Napoleon did." 
But the smoke of battle was yet afar off. So on flew the M^nter 
days and nights at more than lightning speed, in hours of Avork 
and school, books and dreams, and all the myriad modes and 
moods of human life. So, too, passed the summer time, whose 
busy labors preserved the family from want. Our young farmer 
and carpenter kept ever at the post of duty. Pressed by ne- 
cessity from without, moved from within by the growing rest- 
lessness of a spirit which fed on stories of adventure, a nervous 
and ceaseless activity pushed him steadily forward to the new ex- 
periences which only waited for his coming. Another motive, 
more to the credit of his goodness of heart, which kept James 
busy, was that deathless love for his mother which, from the be- 
ginning, was the chief fountain of all good in his life. He knew 
how the faithful widow had lived and worked only for her chil- 
dren ; that her hopes were bound up in their fortunes ; and he 
determined that, as for hini, she should not be disappointed. With 



THE STRUGGLE OF BOYHOOD.— HIRING OUT. 33 

this high purpose in mind, he worked on, — worked on the farm, 
labored on the neighboring farms, exercised his carpentering skill 
in country and in village, till his friends proudly said : " James 
Garfield is the most industrious boy in his neighborhood ; there is 
not a lazy hair on his head." 

When about fifteen years old, in the course of his trade, he was 
called on to assist in the building of an addition to a house, for 
a man who lived several miles away from the home farm. This 
man, whose business was that of a " black-sal ter," noticed the pe- 
culiar activity and ingenuity displayed by James in his work, and 
took a liking to him. Being in need of such a person, he offered 
him his board and fourteen dollars a month to stay with him, help 
in the saltery, and superintend the financial part of the concern. 
After some meditation, and a consultation on the subject at home, 
James accepted the offer. This was against the judgment of Mrs. 
Garfield, whose advice was, at least, always respectfully heard, 
though not always followed. In this business he succeeded well, 
and was expected, by his employer, to make a first-class Salter. 
But the spirit of adventure again revived in him. There came a 
new book, and a new epoch, and the old wish to become an Amer- 
ican Napoleon took a fresh turn. He saw no way to be a soldier. 
The peaceful progress of the Ohio country, fast developing in agri- 
culture and its attendant industries, did not offer very good oppor- 
tunity for a great campaign, and military leadership was, therefore, 
not in demand. 

In this unfortunate conjuncture of civil surroundings with un- 
civil ambitions, James began to read books about the sea. " Jack 
Halyard " took the place of General Marion ; white sails began 
to spread themselves in his brain ; the story of Nelson and Tra- 
falgar, and the like men and things began to take shape in his 
thought as the central facts of history; and a life on the ocean 
wave hung aloft before him as the summit of every aspiration 
worth a moment's entertainment. Through all these notions we 
can see only a reflection of the books he read. Give a child 
its first look at the world through blue spectacles, and the world 
will be blue to the child ; give a boy his first ideas of the world 



34 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

beyond his neighborhood by means of soldiers and navies, and he 
will be soldier and sailor at once. James was now approaching 
the age of sixteen years. New force was added to the sea-fever 
by a work named "The Pirate's Own Book." New tales of 
adventure stirred his blood; he could even sympathize with the 
triumphs of a bold buccaneer, and with the Corsair sing : 

"Oh! who can tell, save he whose heart hath tried, 
And danced in triumph o'er the waters wide, 
The exulting sense, the pulse's maddening play. 
That thrills the wanderer of that trackless way?" 

While in this brittle state of mind no great provocation would 
he need to produce a break with the black-salter. Accordingly, 
an insult, which soon offered, led to a scene and a departure. Some 
member of the family alluded to James as a " servant." In an 
instant his warm blood rose to fever heat ; he refused to stay 
another hour where such things could be said of him. The 
employer's stock of eloquence was too small to change the fiery 
\ outh's mind ; and that night he slept again beneath his mother's 
roof. 

Hitherto the forces and facts which rested in and about James 
A. Garfield had kept him near home ; the outward tending move- 
ment now became powerful, and struggled for control. With the 
passion for the sea at its height, he began to consider the situa- 
tion. At home was the dear mother with her great longing 
that he should love books, go to school, and become a man 
among men, educated, a leader, and peer of the best in character 
and intellect. And how could he leave her? The struggle for 
life had not yet become easy on the farm, and his absence would 
be felt. " Leave us not," pleads the home. " The sea, land-lub- 
ber, the wide, free ocean," says the buccaneer Avithin. At this 
point, while he reflected at home on these things, being out of 
employment, a new incident occurred. 

Our young friend had now acquired something more than the 
average strength of a full-grown man. Born of a hardy race, 
constant exercise of so many kinds was giving him extraordinary 
physical power. So he felt equal to the opportunity which offered 



THE STKUGGLE OF BOYHOOD.— VISION OF THE SEA. 3-5 

if^elf, and became a ,vood-chopper. Twenty-five cords of wood 
were rapidly cut for .t reward of seven dollars. The place where 
this was done was n'^'ar Newburg, a small town close to Cleveland. 
During this time his mother hoped and prayed that the previous 
intention of her son, to go to the lake and become a sailor, would 
weaken, and that he would be led to remain at home ; but fate de- 
creed otherwise. The scene of his wood-cutting exploit Avas close 
to the lake shore, where the vessels passed at everv hour. The 
excitement within him, as each sail went out beyond the horizon, 
never ceased. The story never grew old. The jjirate had not 
died, but still plotted for plunder, and hungered for black flags, 
cutlasses and blood. Xo doubt Garfield would have been a good- 
hearted corsair — one of the generous fellows \vho plundered Span- 
i-sh galleons just because their gain had been ill-gotten ; who spared 
the lives and restored the money of the innocent, gave no quarter 
to the real villains, and never let a fair woman go unrescued. 

Returning home from Xewburg to see his mother, she persuaded 
him to remain a while longer. Harvest-time would soon approach, 
and his services were needed on the farm. Of course, he stayed ; 
helped them through the season, and even spent some extra time 
working for a neighbor. But the facts of a boy's future some- 
times can not be changed by circumstances. A firm-set resolve 
may be hindered long, but not forever. James Garfield had set 
his head to be a sailor, and a sailor he would be. Farming was 
a very good business, no doubt, and just the thing for the brother 
Thomas, but by no means suited to a young salt like himself. 

Now, bright blue waves of Erie, dash against your shores with 
glee, and rise to meet your coming conqueror ! The last family 
prayer w^as uttered, the good-bye kiss was given ; and mother Gar- 
field stood in the low doorway, peering out through the mists of 
morning, to catch a last glimpse of the boy who has just received 
her j)arting blessing. The story of that memorable time is already 
well known. With a bundle of clothes on a stick, thrown across 
his sturdy shoulder, he trudged along, sometimes wearily, but 
always cheerily, bound for the harbor of Cleveland. The way 
was probably void of noteworthy incidents ; and, with his thoughts 



36 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIFLD. 

all absorbed on what he believed to be his coming experiences on 
deck, he arrived at Cleveland. It was an evening in July of 1848. 
The next morning, after due refreshment and a walk about the 
city, being determined on an immediate employment, he lost no 
more time in hastening toward tlie^ rolling deep. Boarding the 
only vessel in port at the time, he strolled about and waited for 
the appearance of his intended captain. The experience of that 
hour was never forgotten. Garfield's ideas of a sailor had thus 
far chiefly come out of books, and Jack, as a swearing tar, he 
was not prepared to meet. Presently a confused sound came up 
from the hold, first faintly muttering, then swelling in volume as 
it came nearer and nearer. Uncertainty about the matter soon 
ceased, however, as the " noble captain's " head appeared, from 
which were issuing rapid volleys of oaths, fired into space, proba- 
bly, as a salute to the glorious god of day. Rough in looks, rude 
in manners, a coarse and petty tyrant on the water, and a drunk- 
ard both there and on land, this bloated individual was not the 
one to greet a green and awkward boy with soft words. Glad to 
see a new object for his hitherto objectless oaths, he inquired Gar- 
field's business there, in language not well shaped to courtesy nor 
kindness. The offer of his services was made, however, as James 
was not disposed to back out of any thing; but he was informed 
that they had no use for him, and obliged to retire in confusion, 
amid the continued curses of a magnanimous commander, and the 
profane laughter of an uncouth group of the commanded. 

At this moment of time the reader will pause to reflect and 
consider on what a delicate balance hangs the history of the world, 
and the men who make the world. " Behold, how great a matter 
a little fire kindleth ! " The results of that day's experience at 
Cleveland are written in every public event that ever felt the 
force of Garfield's molding influence. 

Senates owed a name which raised their reputation, armies owed 
their victories to the drunken vulgarity of an Erie captain ! That 
was Garfield's first day in Cleveland, You Avho know the future, 
which has now become the past, think, and compare it with his 
lad day there ! 



THE STRUGGLE OF BOYHOOD.— ON THE CANAL. 37 

Having beat an inglorious retreat from the lake, James was 
now forced to confront a new and unexpected difficulty. First, 
he became sensible that his treatment there had probably arisen 
principally from his rustic appearance ; and the notion came close 
behind that the same scene was liable to be enacted if he should 
try again. He had plenty of pluck, but also a^ good stock of 
prudence. Go home he would not, at least till he had by some 
means conquered defeat. "What shall I do next?" he muttered 
as he sauntered along. He had already learned, by inquiries in 
town during the day, that work there would be difficult to get. 
In this perplexity, as in every doubtful situation in the world, 
when difficulties are met by determination, a clear w^ay out came 
to him. The problem was solved thus : " I'm going to be a sailor. 
But the ocean is too far away, and I must make my way there by 
lake, meanwhile learning what I can about the business. But I 
can't go on the lake now, — and there's nothing left me but the 
muddy canal. I will go first by way of the canal, meanwhile 
learning what I can about the business." To the canal he turned 
his tired steps. 

It was the old Ohio and Pennsylvania Canal ; and he found, by 
rare good fortune, a boat ready to start, and in need of a driver. 
The captain of this less ambitious navigating affair proved to be 
not quite so rich in profanity, but more w-ealthy in good-natured 
sympathy; his name was Amos Letcher, and he was Garfield's 
cousin. To this man James told the story of his experience 
thus far, and asked employment on the boat. The result was a 
contract to drive mules. Letcher became much interested in his 
young friend, and is authority for some good stories about this 
" voyage," 

"When the time came to start, the Evening Star was brought up 
to the first lock, and after some delay got through. On the other 
side waited the mule-team and its impatient driver, who was eager 
for the trip to begin. In a few hours he would be farther from 
home than ever in his life before, traveling a path which led he 
knew not whither. Practically, they were bound for Pittsburgh. 
To his imagination, it was a trip around the w^orld. So the whip 



38 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

was flourished triumphautly, aud this circumnavigation committee 
of one was on his way. 

Directly a boat approached from the opposite direction. Jim 
bungled, in his excitement, aud got his lines tangled. While he 
stopped to get things straight, the boat came up even with him, 
leaving the tow-line slack for several yards. Eased of their load, 
the mules trotted on quickly to the extent of the line, when, with 
a sudden jerk, the boat caught on a bridge they were passing, and 
team, driver, and all were in the canal. 

The boy, however, was not disconcerted, but climbed out, and, 
amid loud laughter from those on board, proceeded coolly along 
as if it had been a regular morning bath. 

The rough men of the canal were fond of a fight, and always 
ready at fisticuffs. One of the most frequent occasions of these dif- 
ficulties was at the locks, where but one boat could pass at a time. 
When two boats were approaching from opposite directions each 
always tried to get there first, so as to have the right to go through 
before the other. This was a prolific source of trouble. 

As the Evening Star approached lock twenty-one at Akron, one 
of these scenes was threatened. An opposite boat came up just as 
Letcher was about to turn the lock for his own. The other got 
in first. Letcher's men ail sprang out for a fight. Just then Jim 
walked up to the captain and said, "Does the right belong to us?" 
"No, I guess not; but we've started in for it, and we are going to 
have it anyhow." " No, sir," said Garfield. " I say we will not 
have it. I will not fight to keep them out of their rights." This 
brought the captain to his senses, and he ordered his men to give 
room for the enemy to pass. 

There was half-mutiny on board that night, and many uncom- 
plimentary remarks about the young driver. He was a coward, 
they said. Was he a coward? Or simply a just, fair-minded 
youth, and as brave as any of them ? He made up his mind to 
show them which he was, when a good time came. 

The captain had defended Jim from these accusations of the 
men, for a reason unknown to them. The boy had whipped him 
before they came to Akron. It was after a change of teams, and 



THE STRUGGLE OF BOYHOOD.— A QUIZZEE QUIZZED. 



30 



Jim was on the boat. Letcher was a self-confident young man, 
who had recently been a school teacher in Steuben County, Indi- 
ana, and felt as if all knowledge was his province. He had made 
all his men revere him for his learning, and now was the time to 
overwhelm the new driver. 

So, sitting down near where the lad 
was resting, he said : " Jim, I believe 
you have been to school some, and as 
I have not heard a class lately, I will 
ask you some questions to see where 
you .P'c, if youd(ui't care." 

1 iiiK -- i-^stntc (1 Pedagogue Letcher 

thouoht his time 

e 




GARFIKLD ON THE TOW-PATH. 

searched out witty inventions; he asked deep questions; he would 
open this youngling's eyes. The examination did not last long, 
for all questions were quickly answered, and the quizzer ran out 
of materials; his stock of puzzlers was exhausted. 

Then the tables turned. The tailor was out-tailored in three 
minutes, for in that time James had asked him seven questions 
which he could not answer. Hence the captain's allowance for 



40 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

the boy's refusal to fight. Letcher knew enough to appreciate the 
reason. 

The Evening Star had a long trip before her, as the present 
load consisted of coj)per ore consigned to Pittsburgh. This ore 
came down to Cleveland first in schooners from Lake Superior, 
where those great treasuries of ore, which still seem inexhaustible, 
were at that time just beginning to become important interests. 
The habit of the canal-boatmen was to take up the copper at 
Cleveland, carry it to Pittsburgh, and bring back loads of coal. 
Garfield's first experience here must have given him new ideas of 
the growing industries of his country. This constant and immense 
carrying trade between distant places indicated the play of grand 
forces ; these great iron foundries and factories at Pittsburgh be- 
tokened millions of active capital, thousands of skilled workmen, 
and fast-increasing cities abounding in wonders and in wealth. 
Whatever the immediate result of Garfield's canal life might have 
been, whether the boatmen had voted him coward or general, one 
fact must have remained — the mental stimulus imparted from these 
things which he had seen. Then must have dawned upon him 
for the first time a sense of the unmeasured possibilities which lay 
before his own country. Tramp, tramp the mules ; lock after lock 
has been left behind, each turn bringing a new landscape, and the 
young driver pushed bravely on, self-reliant, patient, and popular 
with all the men. For these rough comrades liked him from the 
first as a pleasant fellow, and soon admired him as well. Oppor- 
tunity came to him on the way to prove himself their equal in 
fighting qualities, and more than their equal in generosity. The 
occasion was one the like of which he often knew, where he came 
oif victor with the odds favoring his enemies. At Beaver, from a 
point where the boats w^ere towed up to Pittsburgh by steam-boat, 
the Evening Star was about to be taken in. As Garfield stood in 
the bow of the boat, a burly Irishman, named Dave Murphy, who 
stood a few feet behind, was accidentally struck by a flying piece 
of rope from the steamer, which had evaded Garfield and gone 
over his head. Xo harm was done, but Murphy was a bully who 
saw here a good chance for a fight. He was thirty-five years old, 



THE STRUGGLE OF BOYHOOD.— PUGILISM. 41 

Garfield sixteen. Turning on the boy in a towering rage, he 
aimed a blow with all his strength. But as sometimes occurs to 
men with more brawn than brains, he soon discovered that in this 
case Providence was not " on the side of the heavy battalions." By 
a dexterous motion James eluded his antagonist, at the same instant 
planting a blow behind the fellow's ear which sent him spinning 
into the bottom of the boat. Before the man could recover, his 
young antagonist held him down by the throat. The boatmen 
cheered the boy on ; according to their rules of pugilism, satisfac- 
tion was not complete till a man's features were pounded to a jelly. 
"Give him a full dose, Jim;" "Rah fcr Garfield!" The two 
men arise ; what does this mean ? The Murphy face has not been 
disfigured ; the Murphy nose bleeds not ! Slowly the astonished 
men take in a new fact. Generosity has won the day, and brutal- 
ity itself has been vanquished before their eyes. From that hour 
James became one of the heroes of the towpath ; and the day he 
left it was a day of regret to all his new acquaintances there. 

On the way back from Pittsburgh a vacancy occurred on deck; 
Garfield was promoted to the more responsible position of bow- 
man, and the mules found a new master. So the ocean drcAV one 
step nearer ; this w-as not exactly the sea, of course, but after all it 
was a little more like sailing. Up and down the narrow course, 
following all its windings, the Evening Star pursued its way with- 
out serious accident, and James Garfield stood at the bow till No- 
vember of 1848. Then came a change. New things were j)repar- 
ing for him, and all unknov.-n to him old things were passing 
away. The mother at home still watched for her boy ; the mother 
at home still prayed for her son, and yearned for a fulfillment of 
her steadfast desire that he should be such a man as she had begun 
to dream of him when he was a little child. An accident now 
brought him home to her. The position of bowman on the Even- 
ing Star was rather an unsafe one. The place where James 
stood was narrow and often slippery, and, in a brief period of time, 
he had fallen into the water fDurteen times. The last immersion 
chanced in the following manner: One night as the boat ap- 
proached a lock the bowman was hastily awakened, and tumbled 



42 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

out half asleep to attend to his duty. Uncoiling a rope which was 
to assist in steadying the boat through, he lost his balance, and in 
a second found himself in a noAv familiar place at the bottom of 
the canal. The night was dark, and no help near. Struggling 
about, his hand accidentally clutched a section of the rope which 
had gone over with him. Now, James, pull for your life, hand 
over hand; fight for yourself, fight for another visit to home and 
mother. Strength began to fail. The rope slid off; swim he could 
not. Jerk, jerk; the rope has caught. Pulling away with a will, 
he climbed back to his place, and found that he had been saved by 
a splinter in a plank in which the rope had caught by a knot. 

Such a narrow escape might well stir up the most lethargic brain 
to new and strange reflections; but to the active intellect and bright 
imagination of James A, Garfield it brought a piofound impression, 
a fresh resolution and a new sphere of action. He saw himself 
rescued by a chance which might have failed him a thousand 
times. Might not this be in answer to a mother's prayer? Was 
it possible that he had been saved for some better fortune than his 
present life promised? He recalled the vague ambitions which 
had at times stirred him for a career of usefulness, such as he knew 
his mother had in mind for him. 

When the boat ncared home again, James bade good-bye to the 
Evening Star. Now, fiirewell visions of the Atlantic; farewell 
swearing captain of the lake; farewell raging canal, for this sailor 
lad is lost to you forever. The romantic element of his character 
indeed was not destroyed, as it never could be; nor was the glamour 
of the sea quite gone. It would take the winter of sickness which 
was before him to remove all nautical aspirations. Arriving be- 
fore the okl gate one niglit while the stars were out in all their 
glory, he softly raised the latch, and walked up to the house. 
Never was happier mother than greeted him at that door. Mrs. 
Garfield felt that her triumph was now at hand ; and set herself to 
secure it at once. 

Four hard months of life on and in the canal had told heavily 
on the young man's constitution. Four months more ague and 
fever held him fast ; four months more he lono-cd in vain for the 



THE STRUGGLE OF BOYHOOD.— AT GEAUGA. 43 

vigor of health. During this dreary time one voice above all 
others comforted, cheered, and swayed his drooping spirits, and 
helped him back to a contented mood. In conversation and in 
song, the mother was his chief entertainer. Indeed, INIrs. Gar- 
field had not only a singing voice of splendid quality, but also 
knew a marvelous number of songs ; and James said, later in life, 
that he believed she could have sung many more songs consecu- 
tively, from memory, than her physical powers would have per- 
mitted. Songs in every kind of humor, — ballads, war songs (es- 
pecially of 1812) and hymns with their sacred melody — these she 
had at command in exhaustless stores. And we may be sure that 
such sweet skill was not without its power on her children. That 
voice had been the dearest music James ever heard in childhood, 
and his ear was well fitted to its every tone ; escape from its power 
was hopeless now if he had even wished it so. 

Meanwhile the past receded, and new plans for the future were 
unfolding. It is interesting to notice how smoothly, and all un- 
known to ourselves, we sometimes pass over the lines which mark 
the periods of our lives. The manner of Garfield's present expe- 
rience was no exception to the rule. 

Samuel D. Bates was a young man, not many years older than 
James A. Garfield. He was a good scholar, and had been attend- 
ing a place called " Geauga Seminary," which had grown up in 
the adjoining county. This winter he had taken the school on 
the Garfield farm, expecting to save some money and return to 
Geauga. With his head full of these ideas, he met Garfield, and 
soon had the latter interested in his plans. When the time came 
for the next term to begin, James was well again, and his mother 
and Bates proposed that he should go also. He thought the subject 
over carefully, but was still uncertain what to do. He was not 
sure of his capacity to turn an education to account, and did not 
wish to spoil a good carpenter for the sake of a bad professor or 
preacher. Before making a final decision, he therefore did a char- 
acteristically sensible thing. Dr. J. P. Robison was a physician 
of Bedford, a man well known for good judgment and skill in his 
profession. One day he was visited by an awkward country lad, 



t4 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

who asked a private conversation with him, and, that favor being 
granted, said to him : " My name is James Garfield. My home 
is at Orange. Hitherto I have acquired only the rudiments of an 
education, and but a scanty knowledge of books. But, at this 
time, I have taken up^ the notion of getting an education, and, 
before beginning, I Avant to know what I have to count on. You 
are a physician, and know men well. Examine me, and say plainly 
whether you think I wall be able to succeed." 

This frank speech was rewarded by as fair an answer. The phy- 
sician sounded him well, as to both body and mind, and ended with 
an opinion which summed up in about this fashion: "You are well 
fitted to follow your ambition as far as you are pleased to go. 
Your brain is large and good; your physique is adapted to hard 
work. Go ahead, and you are sure to succeed." 

This settled the question at once and forever. Garfield the 
student, the thinker, the teacher, the preacher, and the statesman, 
are all included in this new direction, and time alone is wanting 
to reveal them to himself and to the world. 

Geauga Seminary was situated at a place called Chester, in 
Geauga County. The faculty consisted of three men and as many 
women. They were : Daniel Branch and wife, Mr. and Mrs. Cof- 
fin, Mr. Bigelow, and Miss Abigail Curtis. In the second year of 
Garfield's attendance, Mr. and Mrs. Branch retired, and were suc- 
ceeded by Mr. Fowder and Mr. Beach. The students were about 
one hundred in number, and of both sexes. There was a library 
of one hundred and fifty volumes, and a literary society, which 
offered a chance for practice in Avriting and S2:)caking. Knowing 
these facts, and that the seminary offered the advantages common 
to many such institutions, we know the circumstances under which 
Garfield began that course of studies which, in seven years, grad- 
uated him with honor from an Eastern college. 

There went with him to Chester two other friends besides 
Bates — one his cousin, William Boynton, the other a lad named 
Orrin H. Judd. These three being all poor boys, they arranged 
to live cheaply. Garfield himself had only seventeen dollars, 
which Thomas and his mother had saved for him to begin on; 



THE STKUGGLE OF BOYHOOD.— LIFE AT CHESTER. 45 

and he expected to make that go a long way by working at his 
old carpenter trade at odd hours, as well as by economy in spend- 
ing money. So the trio kept " bachelors' hall " in a rough 
shanty, which they fitted up Avith some articles brought from 
home; and a poor woman near by cooked their meals for some 
paltry sum. 

There came a time when even this kind of life was thought 
extravagant. Garfield had read an autobiography of Henrv C. 
Wright, who related a tale about supporting life on bread and 
crackers. So they dismissed their French cook, and did the work 
themselves. This did not last long, but it showed them what they 
could do. 

"What tho' on hamely fare we dine, 
Wear hoddin gray, and a' that; 
Gie fools their silks and knaves their wine, 
A man's a man for a' that!" 

Life at college on such a scale as this lacks polish, but may con- 
tain power. The labors which James A. Garfield performed at 
this academy, in the one term, from his arrival on March 6, 
1849, to the end, were jjrobably more than equal to the four 
years' studies of many a college graduate. He never forgot a 
moment the purpose for which he was there. Every recitation 
found his work well done ; every meeting of the literary society 
knew his presence and heard his voice. The library was his fa- 
vorite corner of the building. A new world was to be conquered 
in every science, a new country in every language. Thus a year 
passed, and Garfield's first term at Geauga was ended. During 
the summer vacation he was constantly busy ; first he helped his 
brother to build a barn at home, then turned back for a season to 
his old business as a wood-cutter, and then worked in the harvest- 
field. About the latter a good story remains to us. With two 
well-grown, but young, school-fellows, James applied to a farmer 
who needed more hands, asking employment. The farmer thought 
them rather too young for the business; but, as they offered to 
work for "whatever he thought right," he agreed, thinking it 
would not be much. But they had swung the scythe before, and 
soon made it a warm task for the other men to keep even with 



46 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

them. The okl man looked on in mute admiration for a while, 
and finally said to the beaten men : " You fellows had better look 
to your laurels; them boys are a bcatin' ye all holler." The men, 
thus incited to do their best, worked hard; but they had begun a 
losing battle, and the Garfield crowd kept its advantage. When 
settling time came round, these "boys" were paid men's full 
wages. 

Having, in these ways, saved enough money to begin on, James 
began the fall term at Geauga. Here he still pursued the same 
plan of alternate work and study, inching along the best he could. 
His boarding accommodations were furnished by a family named 
Stiles, for one dollar and six cents a week. The landlady, Mrs. 
Stiles, is made responsible for a story which illustrates how nearly 
penniless James was all this time. He had only one suit of clothes, 
and no underclothing. But toward the end of the term, his well- 
worn pantaloons split at the knee, as he bent over one day, and 
the result was a rent of appalling proportions, which the pin, with 
which he tried to mend matters, failed to conceal. Mrs. Stiles 
kindly undertook, to assist him out of his trouble while he was 
asleep that night. But the time soon came when, though still 
poor, Garfield was beyond danger of being put in such straights 
again. For, even before the time came to go home again, he had 
paid his expenses and purchased a few books. One piece of work 
which he did at this time was to plane all the boards for the sid- 
ing of a house, being paid two cents a board. 

About the first of November James applied for an examination, 
and received a certificate of fitness to teach school. One whole 
year was gone since the sea-vision vanished, and his means for 
support in the new life had been made chiefly by the unaided 
force of his own tough muscles. Enough capital of a new kind 
had now accumulated to become productive, and he determined, 
for the future, to make money out of the knowledge in his head, 
as -vvell as out of the strength and skill of his arm. The time for 
opening the countrj'^ schools was come, and the young man made 
several applications to school trustees near his home, but found 
no place where he was wanted. Returning home discouraged, he 



THE STRUGGLE OF BOYHOOD.— TEACHES THE LEDGE. 47 

found that an offer was Avaiting for him. He took the contract 
to teach the Ledge school, near by, for twelve dollars a month 
and board. 

This school was one of those unfortunate seats of learning so 
often found in rural districts, w^here teachers are habitually ousted 
each term by the big boy terrible. For James Garfield, not yet 
quite eighteen years old, this would be a trying situation, but we 
already know enough about him to feel confident that he can not 
easily be put down. His difficulties were, however, peculiarly 
great; for, though a prophet, he was in his own country, and the 
scholars were not likely to be forward in showing respect to " Jim 
Gaffil." It was the old story, which many a man who has 
taught country school can parallel in his own experience. First 
came insubordination, then correction, then more fight, Ibllowed 
by a signal victory, and at last Master Garfield was master of the 
situation. Then came success, his rcM-ard for hard study and 
hard blows. The Ledge prospered, its teacher became popular; 
and, when the time came to close, he did so, satisfied with him- 
self, and possessor of a neat little sum of money. 

Garfield went back to Geauga that year as planned. Early in 
1851 he had his first ride on a railroad train. Taking passage 
on a train of the Cleveland and Columbus road, then new, he 
went, with his mother, to Columbus. There the representative to 
the legislature from Geauga County, Gamaliel Kent, kindly showed 
him the sights of the capital; from there they went to Zanes- 
ville, and then down the Muskingum, eighteen miles, to visit some 
relatives. There James is said to have taught a short term of 
school before he returned home again; after this came the renewal 
of school-days at Chester ; and so progressing, we may end by say- 
ing that James managed to support himself at Chester for somewhat 
over two years, and to save a little money to begin on M'hen he 
moved a step higher. We have been thus minute in relating 
these incidents only because they best show the stuff that was in 
this heroic young fellow, and he can have no better eulogy. 

Now, what were some of the elements of Garfield's mental de- 
velopment at this period ? During the first term he had revived 



48 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

the rusty recollections of his early acquirements, and pursued 
arithmetic, algebra, grammar, and natural philosophy; afterwards 
came more of the regular academic studies, including the rudiments 
of Latin and Greek ; he also studied botany, and collected a good 
herbarium. Every step had been carefully taken, and his mind 
was becoming accustomed to close thinking. Probably his first 
political impressions of importance were at this time being made, 
but we have no record of any opinions formed by him at that time 
on the subjects which then made political affairs interesting. 

At the end of the first term in Chester, the literary society gave 
a public entertainment; on that occasion James made a speech, 
which is referred to in the diary he kept at that time, with this 
comment : " I was very much scared, and very glad of a short 
curtain across the platform that hid my shaking legs from the 
audience." Soon afterwards, he took some elocution lessons, which 
is evidence of the fact that he began to think of making some 
figure as a public speaker. 

While Garfield taught the Ledge school another change had 
come to him. Th"! old log school-house on his mother's farm was 
used regularly as a church, where a good old man, eloquent and 
earnest in his devotion to religion, ministered to the little congre- 
gation of " Disciples " who assembled to hear him. Recent events, 
and serious thinking, had predisposed James to listen with a will- 
ing ear, and he began to feel drawn back again. to the simple faith 
of childhood which had been taught him by his mother. The sect, 
of which his family were all members, were followers of a new 
religious leader. Alexander Campbell is a name familiar to all 
the present generation of older men. At a time of furious dispu- 
tation on religious subjects, Campbell was one of the ablest of 
controversialists. First, a Presbyterian preacher, he had rejected 
the Confession of Faith, and founded a new church, called the 
"Disciples of Christ," whose only written creed was the Bible. 
Gifted with a proselyting spirit, he soon saw his one society spread 
and grow into a multitude, so that soon not Virginia alone, but 
many surrounding States were included in the religious territory 
of the " Disciples," called sometimes the " Campbellites." It was 



THE STRUGGLE OF BOYHOOD.— JOINS CHURCH. 49 

one of this man's followers and preachers Avho now attracted Gar- 
field. Their fundamentals of belief have been summed up thus; 

1. We call ourselves Christians or Disciples. 

2. We believe in God the Father. 

3. We believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and 
our only Savior. We regard the divinity of Christ as the fundamental 
truth in the Christian system. 

4. We believe in the Holy Spirit, both as to its agency in conversion 
and as an indweller in the heart of the Chri-stian. 

5. We accept both the Old and New Testament Scrij^tures as the 
inspired Word of God. 

6. We believe iu the future punishment of the wicked and the future 
reward of the righteous. 

7. We believe that Deity is a i>rayer-hearing and praver-answering 
God. 

8. We observe the institution of the Lord's Supper on every Lord's 
Day. To this table it is our practice neither to invite nor debar. We 
say it is the Lord's Supper for all the Lord's children. 

9. We plead for the union of all God's people on the Bible, and the 
Bible alone. 

10. The Bible js our only creed. 

IL We maintain that all the ordinances of the Gospel should be ob- 
served as they were in the days of the Apostles. 

Aside from Its adherence to the Bible, this organization did not 
have or profess to have any thing in the way of creed to attract a 
fervid young man to its acceptance. 

Garfield was a man of susceptibility to influences ; and peculiarly 
to those of religion. Nature prepared him for it, and his early 
influences led to it. The " wild-oats " had been sown, and the 
prodigal was ready to return. In March, 1850, he joined the 
Church, and at once became an enthusiastic worker for its in- 
terests. How this new connection came to have a potent in- 
fluence in the shaping and development of his progress, will 
constantly appear as we observe the next few years of his life, 

Garfield was always interested in any cause which still had its 
place to make in the Avorld; for in that particular it would be 



50 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD 

like himself. He joined a young church; the first school he went 
to was a new one, as was also the second. He joined the Re- 
publican party before that party had ever won a national victory. 

In 1851, Garfield thought he had about exhausted the ad- 
vantages of Geauga, and he began to seek " fresh scenes and 
pastures new." We ourselves can not do better than to take 
leave of that secluded spot, summing up our hero's life there in 
these his own words : " I remember with great satisfaction the 
work which was done for me at Chester. It marked the most 
decisive change in my life. AVhile there I formed a definite pur- 
pose and plan to complete a college course. It is a great point 
gained, when a young man makes up his mind to devote several 
years to the accomplishment of a definite work. With the educa- 
tional facilities now afforded in our country, no young man, who 
has good health and is master of his own actions, can be excused 
for not obtaining a good education. Poverty is very incon- 
venient, but it is a fine spur to activity, and may be made a rich 
blessing." 

Alexander Campbell was not merely a zealous projjagandist 
of religious opinions; he w^as an organizer of religious forces. 
Among these forces, education stands in the first rank. Under- 
standing this fact, Campbell himself founded a college at Bethany, 
West Virginia, — then Virginia, — of which he was President until 
he died. Following their leader in this liberal spirit, the Dis- 
ciples had established schools and colleges wherever they were 
able. Hiram, Portage County, Ohio, was a settlement where the 
new sect was numerous, and here, in 1850, was. erected the first 
building of what is now widely known as Hiram College, but 
was then called the Eclectic Institute. It was toward this place 
that in the fall of that year James A. Garfield turned. A some- 
what advanced course of study was promised, and he resolved to 
go there and prepare for college. Arriving there in time to begin 
with the first classes, he looked a]>out as usual for sometliing to 
do. One evening the trustees were in executive session, when a 
knock was heard at their door. The intruder was admitted. He 
was a tall, muscular young man, scarcely twenty years old, un- 



THE STRUGGLE OF BOYHOOD.— JANITOR AT HIEAT^I. 51 

polished in appearance, and carrying himself awkwardly, but 
withal in a strikingly straightforward manner. 

"Well, sir, what is your business with us?" 

In firm, clear tones the answer came : " Gentlemen, I have 
come here from my home in Orange. I have been two years at 
Geauga Seminary, and am here to continue my work. Being the 
son of a widow, who is poor, I must work my way along ; and I 
ask to be made your janitor." Some hesitation was visible in the 
faces of the trustees, and he added : '^ Try me two weeks, and if 
you are not satisfied I will quit." 

The offer was accepted, and James A. Garfield again found him- 
self a rich man ; rich in opportunities, rich in health, rich in 
having some way, though .a humble one, to support himself 
through another period of magnificent mental growth. His inflex- 
ible rule was to do every thing which fell in his way to do, and do 
all things well. Before the term was far gone, the entire school 
had become interested in him. With a pleasant word for every 
one, always more than willing to do a favor, earnest, frank, and a 
ready laugher, nobody could be more popular than Garfield. In a 
short time one of the teachers of Science and English, became ill, 
and Garfield was chosen to fill the temporary vacancy. This 
duty was so faithfully performed that some of the classes were 
continued to him, and so he was never without from three to six 
classes till he went away to college. As a teacher he was singu- 
larly successful ; the classes never flagged in interest, for the 
teacher was always either drawing forth ideas on the subject in 
hand from some one else, or he was giving his own views in a 
manner which invariably held attention. By these helps, by still 
working as a carpenter in the village, and in various other ways, 
making as much and spending as little as he could, Garfield finally 
left Hiram, free from debt, and possessor of three hundred and 
fifty dollars on which to start into college. 

From the time when he became a member of the church at 
Geauga, Garfield had continually increased in devotion to religious 
affairs, and at Hiram quickly became a power. He was constantly 
present at the social prayer-meetings, where his remarks were 



52 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

frequent, and attracted notice. In a short time he was called on 
to address the people, and this becoming a habit, rapidly improved, 
and came to be called "the most eloquent young man in the 
county." For a number of years Garfield was known as a 
first-rate preacher; in regularity of speaking, however, he was 
very much like that order kno\vn among Methodists as " local 
preachers." 

That Garfield was at this time beginning to have political con- 
nections, appears from a story told by Father Bentley, then pas- 
tor of the church at Hiram. On one occasion an evening service 
was about to be held, and the pastor had invited our friend to sit 
with him on the platform; also expecting him to address the peo- 
ple. Unnoticed by Father Bentley, a young man called Garfield 
away, and was hastening him off to talk at a political meeting. 
Discovering his departure, Bentley was about to call him back; 
when, suddenly, he stopped, and said : " Well, I suppose we must 
let him go. Very likely he will be President of the United 
States, some day ! " 

Garfield's general progress at Hiram was intimately connected 
with that of the people about him; and the best possible view of 
him must come from a knowledge of his friends, and the work 
they did together. In a late address to the Alumni of Hiram, 
Garfield has furnished a good sketch of the kind of human ma- 
terial that made up the " Eclectic Institute." 

"In 1850 it was a green field, with a solid, plain brick building in 
the center of it, and almost all the rest has been done by the institu- 
tion itself Without a dollar of endowment, without a powerful friend 
anywhere, a corps of teachers were told to go on the ground and see 
what they could make of it, and to find their pay out of tlie tuitions 
that should be received ; who invited students of their own spirit to 
come here on the ground and find out by trial wha^; they could make 
of it. The chief response has been their work, and the chief part of 
the response I see in the faces gathered before me to-day. It was a 
simple question of sinking- or swimming, and I do not know of any in- 
stitution tliat has accomplished more, with little means, than this school 
on Hiram hill. I know of no place where the doctrine of self-help has 



THE STRUGGLE OF BOYHOOD.— POSSIBLE SWEETHEART. 53 

had a fuller development. As I said a great many years ago, tlie theory 
of Hiram was to throw its young men and women overheard, and let 
them try for themselves. All that were fit to get ashore got there, and 
we had few cases of drowning. Now, when I look over these faces, and 
mark the several geologic ages, I find the geologic analogy does not 
hold — there are no fossils. Some are dead and glorified in our memories, 
but those who are alive are alive. I believe there was a stronger press- 
ure of work to the square inch in the boilers that ran this establishment 
than any other I know of. Young men and ■women — rough, crude and 
untutored farmer boys and girls— came here to tr}^ themselves, and find 
out what manner of people they were. They came here to go on a voy- 
age of discovery, to discover themselves, and in many cases I hope the 
discovery was fortunate." 

Among these brave toilers were two or three of Garfield's more 
intimate friends, with whom we must become acquainted before 
we can come at a thorough knowledge of Garfield himself. Of 
his introduction to them he has said: 

"^V few days after the beginning of the terra, I saw a class of three 
reciting in mathematics — geometry, I think. I had never seen a geome- 
try, and, regarding both teacher and class with a feeling of reverential 
awe for the intellectual height to which they had climbed, I studied their 
faces so closely that I seem to see them now as distinctly as I saw them 
then. And it has been my good fortune since that time to claim them 
all as intimate friends. The teacher was Thomas Munneil, and the 
members of his class were William B. Hazen, George A. Baker and 
Almeda A. Booth." 

Afterwards he met here, for the second time, one who had been 
known to him in Chester. Lucretia Rudolph was a farmer's daugh- 
ter, whose humble home was then not far from Chester. Her: 
father was from Maryland; his uncle had been a brave soldier of 
the Revolution, and, as the story goes, he afterward went to 
France, enlisted under the banner of Napoleon, and was soon 
known to the world as Marshal Ney. Lucretia's mother came 
from Vermont, and her name had been Arabella Mason. The 
Rudolph family was poor, but industrious and ambitious. Their 



54 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

daughter had, therefore, been seut to Geauga. She was a " quiet, 
thoughtful girl, of singularly sweet and refined disposition," and 
a great reader. 

" Her heart was gentle as her face was fair, 
"With grace and love and pity dwelling there." 

In the fall of 1849 this young lady was earnestly pursuing her 
studies at Geauga Seminary, and, during the hours of recitation, 
there often sat near her the awkward and bashful youth, Garfield, 
There these two beeame acquainted; and, although the boy made 
but few advances at first, they soon became good friends. Her sweet, 
attractive ways and sensible demeanor drew his heart out toward 
her; and, as for James, though he may have been very rough in 
appearance, yet his countenance was always a good one, and his 
regularly brilliant leadership of the class in all discussions was 
well adapted to challenge such a maiden's admiration. A back- 
woods idyl, ending in an early marriage, would not be a surpris- 
ing result in such a case as this. But these two souls were too 
earnestly bent on high aims in life to trouble their hearts, or 
bother their heads, with making love. They were merely ac- 
quaintances, although tradition hath it, that from the day when, 
leaving Chester, their paths diverged awhile, a corres^wndence 
was regularly kept up. However that may be, the fact we know 
is, that at this time and place, James A. Garfield first met Lucre- 
tia Rudolph, the woman who was one day to become his Avife. 
In 1852 the Rudolphs moved to Hiram, where the young lady 
studied at the " Eclectic," and recited to Garfield in some of her 
classes. The old friendship here ripened into affection; they pur- 
sued many studies together, and, about the time he left Hiram for 
college, they were engaged to marry. Long after they were mar- 
ried, a poet of Hiram referred to her thus : 

"Again a Mary? Nay, Lucreiia, 
The noble, classic name 
That well befits our fair ladie, 
Our sweet and gentle dame, 
With heart a,s leal and loving 



THE STEUGGLE OF BOYHOOD.— BOOKS AND FEIE^T\ 55 

As e'er was sung in lays 

Of high-born Roman matron, 

In old, heroic days ; 

Worthy her lord illustrious, whom 

Honor and fame attend ; 

Worthy her soldier's name to wear, 

Worthy the civic wreath to share 

That binds her Viking's tawny hair; 

Eight proud are we the world should know 

As hers, him we long ago 

Found truest helper, friend." 

Another woman, however, one of the members of the awe- 
inspiring geometry class named above, had, in the Hiram days, 
more influence on Garfield's intellectual life than any other per- 
son. Miss Alraeda A. Booth was a woman of wonderful force of 
mind and character. She was the daughter of NeAv England par- 
ents, who had come to Ohio, where her father traveled over an 
immense circuit of country as an itinerant :Methodist preacher. 
Almeda very early discovered intellectual tastes, and, at twelve, 
read such works as Kollin's Ancient History and Gibbon's Decline 
and Fall of the Boman Empire. She taught her first school at 
seventeen. An engagement of marriage was broken by the death 
of her intended husband, and her life was ever afterward devoted 
to the business of teaching. Thus the quiet current of life was 
not wrecked, but went smoothly on, clear and beautiful. She 
was poor in what people call riches; the office of teacher gave 
support. She was sad because death had darkened her life ; study 
was a never-failing solace. Her mind gloried in strength, and 
the opportunity for a career of useful exercise of its powers helped 
to make her happy. Henceforth she loved knowledge more than 
ever; and could freely say: 

" My mind to ma a kingdom is. 
Such perfect joy therein I find, 
As far exceeds all earthly bliss 

That God or Nature hath assigned." 

About the same time with Garfield, Miss Booth came to Hiram, 
and soon found her time, like his, divided between teaching in 



56 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

some classes and reciting in others. Each at once recognized in 
the other an intellectual peer, and they soon were pursuing many 
studies together. Our best idea of her comes from an address 
made by Garfield, on a memorial occasion, in 1870, the year after 
Miss Booth died. He compared her to Margaret Fuller, the only 
American woman whom he thought her equal in ability, in variety 
of accomplishments, or in influence over other minds. " It is 
quite possible," says Garfield, "that John Stuart Mill has exag- 
gerated the extent to which his own mind and works were influ- 
enced by Harriet Mills. I should reject his opinion on that sub- 
ject as a delusion, did I not kijow from my own experience, as 
well as that of hundreds of Hiram students, how great a power 
Miss Booth exercised over the culture and opinions of her friends." 
Again : " In mathematics and the physical sciences I Avas far 
l)ehind her; but we were nearly at the same place in Greek and 
Latin. She had made her home at President Hayden's almost 
from the first, and I became a member of his family at the begin- 
ning of the AVinter Term of 1852-'3. Thereafter, fur nearly two 
years, she and I studied together in the same classes (frequently 
without other associates) till we had nearly completed the class- 
ical course." In the summer vacation of 1853, with several oth- 
ers, they hired a professor and studied the classics. 

"Miss Booth read thoroughly, and for the first time, the Pastorals 
of Virgil — that is, the Georgics and Bucolics entire — and the first six 
books of Homer's Iliad, accompanied by a thorough drill in the Latin 
or Greek Grammar at each recitation. I am sure that none of those 
who recited with her would say she was behind the foremost in the thor- 
oughness of her work, or the elegance of her translation. 

"During the Fall Term of 1853, she read one hundred ])ages of He- 
rodotus, and about the same amount of Livy. During that term also, 
Profs. Dunshee and Hull and Miss Booth and I met, at her room, two 
evenings of each week, to make a joint translation of the Book of Ro- 
mans. Prof Dur.shee contributed his studies of the German commen- 
tators, De Wette and Tholuck; and each of the translators made some 
special study for each meeting. How nearly we completed the trans- 
lation, I do not remember; but I do remember that the contributions 



THE STRUGGLE OF BOYHOOD.— ENTEES COLLEGE. 57 

and criticisms of Miss Booth were remarkable for suggestiveness and 
sound judgment. Our work was more thorough than rapid, for I find 
this entry in ray diary for December 15, 1853: 'Translation Society sat 
three hours at Miss Booth's room, and agreed upon the translation of 
nine verses.' 

"During the AVinter Term of 1853-4, she continued to read Livy, 
and also read the whole of Demosthenes on the Crotvn. The members of 
the class in Demosthenes were Miss Booth, A. Hull, C. C. Foot and 
myself. 

" During the Spring Term of 1854, she read the Germania and Agrio- 
da of Tacitus, and a portion of Hesiod." 

These were the occupations, these the friends of James A. 
Garfield at Hiram, when, in the fall of 1854, he found himself 
ready for college. He was so far advanced that he would easily 
be able to graduate in two years. The best institution of ad- 
vanced learning, in the " Disciples' " church, was that of which 
Alexander Campbell was president, at Bethany, Virginia. But 
Garfield, much to the surprise of his Hiram friends, made up his 
mind that he would not go there. The reasons he gave are sum- 
med up in a letter written by him at that time, and quoted by 
Whitelaw Reid in his Ohio in the War. This letter shows not 
only why he did not go to Bethany, but why he did go to Will- 
iams. He wrote : 

"There are three reasons why I have decided not to go to Bethany: 
1st. The course of study is not sf) extensive or thorough as in Ecistern 
colleges. 2d. Bethany leans too heavily toward slavery. •Sd. I am the 
son of Disciple parents, am one myself, and have had but little acquaint- 
ance with people of other views ; and, having always lived in the West, 
I think it will make me more liberal, both in my religious and general 
views and sentiments, to go into a new circle, where I shall be under 
new influences. These considerati(5ns led me to conclude to go to some 
New England college. I therefore wrote to the presidents of Brown 
University, Yale and WilUams, setting forth the amount of study I had 
done, and asking how long it would take me to finish their course. 

" Their answers are now before me. All tell me I can graduate in 
two years. They are all brief, business notes, but President Hopkins 



58 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

concludes with this sentence : ' If you come here, we shall be glad to do 
what we can for you.' Other things being so near equal, this sentence, 
which seems to be a kind of friendly grasp of the hand, has settled tli© 
question for me. I shall start for Williams next week." 

The next week he did go to Williams. Boyhood, with its strug- 
gles, had vanished. Garfield was now a man of twenty -three yearsj 
with much development yet before him, for his possibilities of 
growth were very large, and the process never stopped while he 
lived. What he did at Williams let the following pages reveal. 



THE MOKXIKG OF POWEB.-COLLEGE LU^E. 59 

CHAPTER III. 

THE MORNING OF POWHR, 

Measure the girth of this aspiring tree! 

Glance upward wliere the greeh boughs, spreading wide,. 
Fling out their foliage, and thou shalt see 

The promise' of a Nation's health and pride. 

COLLEGE life, as we have it in this country, is a romance. 
In the midst of an age in whose thought poetry has found 
little lodgment ; in which love has become a matter of business, 
and literature a trade, the Ajiierican college is the home of senti- 
ment, of ideas, and of letters. The old institutions of romance 
have crumbled into ruins. The armed knight, the amorous lady, 
the wandering minstrel, the mysterious monastery, the mediaeval 
castle with its ghosts and legends exist only in history. But be- 
hind the academic walls there are passages-at-arms as fierce, loves 
as sweet, songs as stirring, legends as wonderful, secrets as well 
transmitted to posterity as ever existed in the brain of AValter Scott. 

It was to such an enchanted life at Williams College, that Gar- 
field betook himself in the month of June, 1854. To go through 
college is like passing before a great number of photographic cam- 
eras. A man leaves an indelible picture of himself .printed on the 
mind of each student with whom he comes in contact. 

When Garfield entered AVilliams, he was over six feet high, as 
awkward as he was muscular, and looking every inch a backwoods- 
man. He had made great progress, however, in his previous stud- 
ies, and successfully passed his examination for the junior class. 
A young fellow, named W^ilbur, a cripple, came with him from 
Ohio, and the couple from the first attracted much attention. A 
classmate writes : " Garfield's kindness to his lame chum was re- 
marked by every body." 

But many of the college boys were the sons of rich men. The 
strapping young fellow from Ohio was, in his own language, a 



60 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

" greeny " of the most verdant type. His clothes were homespun, 
and the idea of fitting him seemed never to have entered their 
maker's head. His language was marred by uncouth provincial- 
isms. His face had a kindly and thoughtful expression, on which 
the struggle of boyhood had left little trace, but this could not 
save him from many a cut. To a coarser-grained man, the petty 
indignities, the sly sarcasms, the cool treatment of the Eastern col- 
legians would not have been annoying, but there are traces of a 
bitter inward anguish in Garfield's heart. at this tim«. To make 
it worse, he had not entered a lower class, where he perhaps might 
have had companions as green as him&elf, or, at least, comparative 
obscurity; but, entering an upper class, from whose members rus- 
ticity had long since disappeared, he was considered a legitimate 
target for the wit of the entire body of students. 

But he had brains, and nowhere in the world does ability rise 
to the top, and mediocrity sink to the bottom, so surely and swiftly, 
as at college. In a short time, his commanding abilities began to 
assert themselves. In the class-room, he was not only a profound 
and accurate scholar, but his large brain seemed packed with in- 
formation of every sort, and all ready for use at a moment's notice. 
His first summer before the regular fall term he spent in the col- 
lege library. Up to that time he had never seen a copy of Shakes- 
peare ; he had never read a novel of Walter Scott, of Dickens, or 
of Thackeray. 

The opportunity was a golden one. On the shelves of the AVil- 
liams library were to be found the best books of all the ages. 
Plunging in at once, he read poetry, history, metaphysics, science, 
with hardly a pause for meals. He felt that his poverty had made 
him lose time, and that the loss must be made good. His power- 
ful frame seemed to know no fatigue, and his voracious and devour- 
ing mind no satiety. Weaker minds would have been foundered. 
Not so with this western giant. Note-book in hand, he jotted 
down memoranda of references, mythologic, historical or literary, 
which he did not fully understand, for separate investigation. The 
ground was carefully gleaned, notwithstanding the terrific speed. 
This outside reading was kept up all through his stay at Williams. 



THE MOENIXG OF POWER.— COLLEGE LIFE. 61 

Hon. Clement H. Hill, of Boston, a classmate of Garfield, writ- 
ing of his studies and reading, says : " I think at that time he was 
paying great attention to German, and devoted all his leisure time 
to that language. In his studies, his taste was rather for meta- 
physical and philosophical studies than for history and biography, 
which were the studies most to my liking; but he read besides a 
good deal of poetry and general literature. Tennyson was then, 
and has ever been since, one of his favorite authors, and I remem- 
ber, too, when Hiawatha was published, how greatly he admired it, 
and how he would quote almost pages of it in our walks together. 
He was also greatly interested in Charles Kingsley's writings, 
particularly in Alton Locke and Yeast. I first, I think, introduced 
him to Dickens, and gave him Oliver Twist to read, and he roared 
with laughter over Mr. Bumble." 

There are but few stories told of Garfield's life at Williams, and 
there is a reason behind the fact. The college " yarn " is gener- 
ally a tradition of some shrewd trick, some insubordination to dis- 
cipline, or some famous practical joke. Every college has a con- 
stantly growing treasury of such legendary lore. There are stories 
of I'obbed hen-roosts, pilfered orchards, and plundered watermelon 
patches; of ice-cream stolen from the back porch just after the 
guvists had assembled in the parlor; of mock processions, of bogus 
nevvspapers, of wedding invitations gotten out by some rascally 
Sophomore, for the marriage of some young couple, who were 
barely whispering the thought m their own imaginations. There 
are stories of front doors painted red; of masked raobs rang- 
ing through town on Halloween, and demanding refreshment; 
of the wonderful theft of the college bell, right when a watch- 
man with loaded revolver was in the building, of hairbreadth 
escapes down lightning rods, and of the burning in effigy of un- 
popular professors. There is a story told in nearly every college 
in the country, of how a smart fellow, to revenge himself, sprink- 
led several barrels of salt on the street and sidewalk in front of a 
professor's house ; how he drove all the wandering cattle in the 
village to that part of the street, and how no digging, nor sweep- 
ing, nor scalding water, nor flourished broom handles did any good 



62 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAKFIELD. 

toward driving aAvay the meek but persistent kine, who, with clat- 
tering bell and monotonous belloAV, for mouths afterward, day and 
night, chose that spot for their parlor. 

But no such legends hung round the name of Garfield at Wil- 
liams College. He was there under great pecuniary pressure, anti 
for a high and solemn purpose. He was there for work, not play. 
Every thing which looked like a turning aside from the straight 
and narrow way, was indignantly spurned. At one time he caught 
the fever for playing chess. He was a superior player, and en- 
joyed the game immensely. But when he found it carried him to 
late hours, he denied himself the pleasure entirely. 

But he stepped at once to the front rank as a debater in his lit- 
erary society. His power of statement, his grasp of facts, his quick 
repartee, combined to make him the leading orator of the college. 
His method of preparation showed the mind of a master. The 
subject of debate he would divide into branches, and assign a 
separate topic to each of his allies for investigation, distributing 
each topic according to their respective qualities of mind. Each 
man overhauled the college library, gathering and annotating all 
the facts and authorities upon his particular branch of study, and 
submitted his notes to Garfield, who would then analyze the mass of 
facts, draw up the propositions, which were to bear down like INIace- 
donian phalanxes upon the enemy, and redistribute the branches of 
the question to his debaters for presentation on the rostrum. 

His mind never seemed foggy. Odd scraps of information, 
which ordinary men would have been unable or afraid to use, he 
wielded like a club about his adversaries' heads. In a public de- 
bate in his junior year, the preceeding speaker had used a lengthy 
and somewhat irrelevant illustration from Don Quixote. When 
Garfield's turn for reply came, he brought down the house by say- 
ing: "The gentleman is correct in drawing analogies between his 
side of this question and certain passages in the life of Don Quix- 
ote. There is a marked resemblance, which I perceive myself, be- 
tween his argument and the. scene of the knight attacking the 
windmill; or, rather, it would be more appopriate to say that he 
resembles the windmill attaching the knight." At the college sup- 



THE MORNING OF POWER.— COLLEGE LIFE. 63 

per, which followed the public entertainment, Garfield's extensive 
acquaintance with standard literature was being talked about, when 
he laughingly told his admiring friends that he had never read Don 
Quixote, and had only heard a mention of the tournament between 
the crazy knight and the windmill. 

His classmates, in writing of the impressions made on them by 
their college chum, speak much of his warm, social disposition, 
and his fondness for jokes. He had a sweet, large, wholesome 
nature, a hearty and cheerful manner, which endeared him most 
closely to the men among whom he spent the two years of col- 
lege life. By the poorer and younger students he was almost 
worshiped for his kindliness and encouragement. He was a warm 
friend of every boy in the college; but for the weak, or sick, or 
poverty stricken, his heart overflowed with generous sympathy. 

His morals were as spotless as the stars. A classmate, who 
knew him well, writes : " I never heard an angry word, or a 
hasty expression, or a sentence which needed to be recalled. He 
possessed equanimity of temper, self-possession, and self-control in 
the highest degree. What is more, I never heard a profane or 
improper word, or an indelicate allusion from his lips. He was 
in habits, speech, and example, a pure man." 

WilliamstoAvn, Massachusetts, where the college is located, is 
one of the most beautiful spots on the continent, and its magnifi- 
cent mountain scenery made a deep impression on the mind of the 
tall Ohioan, who had been reared in a level country. It is only 
to people who live among them that mountains are unimpressive, 
and, perhaps, even then they make their impress on the character, 
giving it a religious loftiness and beauty. 

An old institution of Williams College was " Mountain Day " — 
an annual holiday given for expeditions to some picturesque point 
in the vicinity. On one of these occasions, an incident revealed 
the courage and piety of " Old Gar," as the boys lovingly called 
tlieir leader. They were on the summit of " Old Greylock," seven 
miles from the college. Although it was midsummer, the mount- 
ain top was cool; and, as the great glowing sun sank behind the 
western range, the air became chilly. The group of collegians 



64 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAKFIELD. 

were gathered about a camp-fire that blazed up briskly in the 
darkening air. Some were sitting, some standing, but all were 
silent. The splendor and solemnity of the scene ; the dark wind- 
ing valley; the circling range of mountains; the over-bending sky; 
the distant villages, with the picturesque old college towers; the 
faint tinkle of the cowbell ; the unspeakable glories of the sunset, — 

"As through the "West, where sank the crimson day, 
Meek twilight slowly sailed, and waved her banners gray," — 

filled every thoughtful heart with religious awe. Just as the 
silence became oppressive, it was broken by the voice of Garfield : 
" Boys, it is my habit to read a chapter in the Bible every even- 
ing with my absent mother. Shall I read aloud?" The little 
company assented; and, drawing from his pocket a well-worn 
Testament, he read, in soft, rich tones, the chapter which the 
mother in Ohio was reading at the same time, and then called on 
a classmate to kneel on that mountain top and pray. 

The two months' vacation of Garfield's first winter at college 
was spent at Korth Pownal, Vermont, teaching a writing-school, 
in a school-house where, the winter before, Chester A. Arthur had 
been the regular teacher. But, at that time, Garfield only knew 
his predecessor by name, and the men whose destinies were in the 
future to become so closely intertwined did not become acquainted- 

At the end of his junior year Garfield's funds were exhausted ; 
but, after a consultation with his mother, he resolved to borrow 
the money to complete his course, rather than lose more time. 
His first arrangement for the money failed; but Dr. J. P. Robi- 
son, of Bedford, who, five years before, had prophesied so much 
of the widow's son, readily assumed the burden, asking no security 
but his debtor's word, but receiving a life insurance policy which 
Garfield, who seemed to inherit an apprehension of sudden ca- 
lamity, insisted on procuring. 

At the beginning of his senior year, he was elected one of the 
editors of the AVilliams Quarterly^ the college paper. His asso- 
ciates in the work were ^Y. R. Baxter, Henry E. Knox, E. Clar- 
ence Smith, and John Tatlock. The pages of this magazine were 



THE MOENING OF POWER.— COLLEGE LIFE. 65 

enriched by a great number of the products of his pen. His 
originality of thought and pleasant style is nowhere better shown 
than in the following extract from a brilliant article upon Karl 
Theodore Korner : 

"The greater part of our modern literature bears evident marks of 
the haste which characterizes all the movements of this age ; but, in 
reading these older authors, we are impressed with the idea that they 
enjoyed the most comfortable leisure. Many books we can read in a 
raihoad car, and feel a harmony between the rushing of the train and 
the haste of the author; but to enjoy the older authors, we need the 
quiet of a winter evening — an easy chair before a cheerful fire, and all 
the equanimity of spirits we can command. Then the genial good nat- 
ure, the rich fullness, the persuasive eloquence of those old masters will 
fall upon us like the warm, glad sunshine, and afford those hours of 
calm contemplation in Avhich the spirit may expand with generous growth, 
and gain deep and comprehensive views. The pages of friendly old 
Goldsmith come to us like a golden autumn day, when every object 
which meets the eye bears all the impress of the completed year, and 
the beauties of an autumnal forest." 

Another article, which attracted great attention at the college, 
was entitled "The Province of History." The argument was 
that history has two duties, the one to narrate facts with their 
relations and significance, the other to show the tendency of the 
whole to some great end. His idea was that history is to show 
the unfolding of a great providential plan in the affairs of men 
and nations. In the course of the article he said : 

"For every village. State, and nation there is an aggregate of native 
talent which God has given, and by which, together with His Provi- 
dence, He leads that nation on, and thus leads the world. In the light 
of these truths, we affirm that no man can understand the history of 
any nation, or of the world, who does not recognize in it the power of 
God, and behold His stately goings forth as He walks among the nations. 
It is His hand that is moving the vast superstructure of human history, 
and, though but one of the windows were unfurnished, like that of the 
5 



66 . LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

Arabian palace, yet all the powers of earth could never complete it 
•without the aid of the Divine Architect. 

'•'To employ another figure — the world's history is a divine poem, of 
which the history of every nation is a canto, and of every man a Avorcl. 
Its strains have been pealing along down the centuries, and, though there 
have been mingled the discord of roaring cannon and dying men, yet to 
the Christian philosopher and historian — the humble listener — there has 
been a divine melody running through the song, which speaks of hope 
and halcyon days to come. The record of every orphan's sigh, of every 
Avidow's prayer, of every noble deed, of every honest heart-throb for the 
right, is swelling that gentle strain; and when, at last, the great end is 
attained — when the lost image of God is restored to the human soul ; 
when the church anthem can be pealed forth without a discordant note, 
then will angels join in the chorus, and all the sons of God again ' shout 
for joy.' " 

This is really an oration. It is not the style of the essayist. 
It is the style of the orator before his audience. The boldness of 
the figure which would captivate an audience, is a little palling 
to the quiet and receptive state of the reader. The mental atti- 
tude of Garfield when he wrote that passage was not that of the 
Avriter in his study, but of the orator on the platform with a 
hushed assemblage before him. It will be noticed that this char- 
acteristic of style only became more marked with Garfield after 
he had left the mimic arena of the college. 

But the idea embodied in this article is as significant and char- 
acteristic as its expression. In some form or other most of the 
world's great leaders have believed in some outside and controll- 
ing influence, which really shaped and directed events. To this 
they attributed their own fortune. Napoleon called and believed 
himself to be " The Child of Destiny." Mohammed was a fatalist : 

" On two days it stands not to run from thy fate — 

The appointed and the unappointed day ; 
On the first, neither balm nor physician can save, 

Nor thee, on the second, the universe slay.' 

Buddha believed in fatalism. So did Calvin. Julius Csesar 
ascribed his own career to super-imposed and inexorable destiny. 



THE MORNING OF POWER.— MEMORY. 67 

"William III., of England, thought men were in the grasp of an 
iron fate. 

The idea expressed in this article of a providential plan in hu- 
man things, according to which history unfolds itself, and events 
and men are controlled, is not seen here for the last time. It 
will reappear at intervals throughout the life of the man, always 
maintaining a large ascendency in his mind. It is not a belief in 
fate, destiny, or predestination, but it is a kindred and correspond- 
ing one. Whether such beliefs are false or true, whether super- 
stitious or religious, does not concern the biographer. It is suffi- 
cient that Garfield had such a belief, and that it was a controlling 
influence in his life. % 

But Garfield's literary efforts in college also took the form of po- 
etry. The affectionate nature, and lofty imagination, made his 
heart the home of sentiment, and poetry its proper expression. 
We reproduce entire a poem entitled " Memory," written during 
his senior year. At that time, his intended profession was teach- 
ing, and it is possible that the presidency of a Christian college 
was "the summit Avhere the sunbeams fell," but in the light of 
events the last lines seem almost j^rophetic. 

MEMORY. 

'Tis beauteous night; the stars look brightly down 

Upon the earth, decked in her robe of snow, 

No light gleams at the window save my own, 

Which gives its cheer to midnight and to me. 

And, now, with noiseless step, sweet Memory comes 

And leads me gently through her twilight realms. 

What poet's tuneful lyre has ever sung, 

Or delicatest pencil e'er portrayed. 

The enchanted, shadowy land where Memory dwells? 

It has its valleys, cheerless, lone, and drear, > 

Dark shaded by the mournful cypress tree, 

And yet its sunlit mountain-tops are bathed 

In heaven's own blue. Upon its craggy cliffs, 

Robed in the dreamy light of distant years, 

Are clustered joys serene of other days; 

Upon its gentle, sloping hillside bend 



68 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

The weeping willow o'er the sacred dust 

Of dear departed ones: and yet in that land, 

Where'er our footsteps fall upon the shore, 

They that were sleeping rise from out the dust 

Of death's long, silent years, and 'round us stand, 

As erst they did before the prison tomb 

Eeceived their clay within its voiceless halls. 

The heavens that bend above that land are hang 

With clouds of various hues; some dark and chill*, 

Surcharged Avith sorrow, cast their somber shade 

Upon the sunny, joyous land below : 

Others are floating through the dreamy air, 

White as falling snow, their margins tinged: 

With gold and crimsoned hues ; their shadows fall 

Upon the flowery meads and sunny slopes. 

Soft as the shadow of an angel's wing. 

When the rough battle of the day is done, 

And evening's peace falls gently on the heart, 

I bound away across the noisy years, 

Unto the utmost verge of Memory's land, 

Where earth and sky in dreamy distance meet : 

And memory dim, with dark oblivion joins ; 

Where woke the first remembered sounds that fell 

Upon the ear in childhood's early morn ; 

And wandering thence, along the rolling years, 

I see the shadow of my former self 

Gliding from childhood up to man's estate. 

The path of youth winds down through many a vale 

And on the brink of many a dread abyss. 

From out whose darkness comes no ray of light, 

Save that a phantom dances o'er the gulf 

And beckons toward the verge. Again the path 

Leads o'er a summit where the sunbeams fall; 

And thus in light and shade, sunshine and gloom, 

Sorrow and joy, this life-path leads along. 

It is said that every one has in some degree a prophetic instinct ; 
that the spirit of man reaching out into the future apprehends more 
of its destiny than it admits even to itself. If ever this premoni- 
tion finds adequate expression, it is in poetry. On the following 
page will be found a gem, torn from the setting of Garfield's col- 
lege life, which was published during his senior year, and is 
equally suggestive. 



MOKNING OF POWER.— AUTUMN. 69 



AUTUMN. 

Old Autumn, thou art here ! Upon the earth 
And in the heavens the signs of death are hung; 
For o'er the earth's brown breast stalks pale decay, 
And 'mong the lowering clouds the wild winds wail, 

And sighing sadly, shout the solemn dirge, 
O'er Summer's fairest flowers, all faded now. 
The winter god, descending from the skies. 
Has reached the mountain tops, and decked their brows 
With glittering frosty crowns, and breathed his breath 
Among the trumpet pines, that herald forth 
His coming. 

Before the driving blast 
The mountain oak bows down his hoary head, 
And flings his withered locks to the rough gales 
That fiercely roar among his branches bare, 
Uplifted to the dark, unpitying heavens. * 

The skies have put their mourning garments on, 
And hung their funeral drapery on the clouds. 
Dead Nature soon will wear her shroud of snow 
And lie entombed in Winter's icy grave. 
Thus passes life. As heavy age comes on, 
The joys of youth — bright beauties of the Spring — 
Grow dim and faded, and the long dark night 
Of death's chill winter comes. But as the Spring 
Rebuilds the ruined wrecks of Winter's waste. 
And cheers the gloomy earth with joyous light, 
So o'er the tomb the star of hope shall rise 
And usher in an ever-during day. 

There is considerable poetic power here. The picture of the 
mountain oak, with its dead leaves shattered by the November 
blasts, and its bare branches uplifted to the dark unpitying heav- 
ens, is equal to Thomson. This poem, like the one on Memory, 
is full of sympathy with nature, and a somber sense of the sor- 
rowful side of human nature. 

But a college boy's feelings have a long range upward and down- 
ward. Nobody can have the " blues " more intensely, and nobody 
can have more fun. We find several comic poems by Garfield hi 
his paper. One of them is a parody on Tennyson's " Light Bri- 



70 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

gade," and served to embalm forever in the traditions of Williams 
a rascally student prank wliicli the Freshmen played upon their 
Sophomore enemies. One stanza must suffice for these pages. It 
was called "The Charge of the Tight Brigade": 

JBottks to right of them, 
Bottles to left of them, 
Bottles in front of them, 

Fizzled and sundered, 
Ent'ring with shout and yell, 
Boldly they drank and well, 
They caught the Tartar then ; 
Oh, ivhat a perfect sell! 

Sold — the half hundred. 

Grinned all the dentals bare. 
Swung all their caps in air, 
» Uncorking bottles there, 

Watching the Freshmen while 

Every one wondered; 
Plunged in tobacco-smoke, 
With many a desperate stroke, 
Dozens of bottles broke. 
TJien they came back, but not. 

Not the half hundred. 

The winter vacation of his senior year Garfield spent at Poesten- 
kill, a little place a few miles from Troy, New York. While teaching 
his writing school there, he became acquainted with some members 
of the Christian Church and through them with the officers of the 
city schools in Troy. Struck by his abilities, they resolved to 
offer him a position in the schools at a salary of $1,500 a year. 
The proposition was exciting to his imagination. It meant much 
more money than he could hope for back in Ohio; it meant the 
swift discharge of his debt, a life in a busy city, where the roar of 
the great world Avas never hushed. But on the other hand, his 
mother and the friends among whom he had struggled through 
boyhood, were back in Ohio. 

The conflict was severe. At last his decision was made. He 
and a gentleman representing the Troy schools were walking on a 



THE MORNING OF POWER.— POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT. 71 

hill culled Mount Olympus, when Garfield settled the matter in 
the followiug words : 

" You are not Satan, and I am not Jesus, but we are upon the 
mountain, and you have tempted me powerfully. I think I must 
say, ' Get thee behind me,' I am poor, and the salary would soon 
pay my debts and place me in a position of independence; but 
there are two objections. I could not accomplish my resolution 
to complete a college course, and should be crippled intellectually 
for life. Then my roots are all fixed in Ohio, where people know 
me and I know them, and this transplanting might not succeed 
as well in the long run as to go back home and work for smaller 

During his two years at Williams, a most important phase of 
Garfield's intellectual development was his opinion upon questions 
of politics. It will be remembered that in 1855, the volcanic flames 
from the black and horrible crater of slavery began to burst 
through the crust of compromise, which for thirty years had hidden 
the smoldering fires. In Kansas, civil war was raging. Deter- 
mined men from all parts of the country had gone there to help 
capture the State for their side, and in the struggle between the 
two legislatures, the slavery men resolved to drive the Free-soilers 
from the State. The sky was red with burning farm houses. 
The woods were full of corpses of antislavery men with knives 
sticking in their hearts. Yet the brave Free-soilers held their 
ground. One man who had gone there from Ohio, had two sons 
literally chopped to pieces. His name was John Brown. He also 
remained, living six weeks in a swamp, in order to live at all. 

The entire country was becoming aroused. Old political j)arties 
were breaking up, and the lines reformed upon the slavery question. 
Garfield, though twenty-three years old, had never voted. Nom- 
inally he was an antislavery Whig. But he took little interest in 
any party. So far, the struggle of his own life and the study of 
literature had monopolized his mind. 

In the fall of 1855, John Z. Goodrich, a member of Congress 
from the western district of Massachusetts, delivered a political 
address in Williamstown. Garfield and a classmate attended the 



72 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. • 

speaking. The subject was the Kausas-Nebraska struggle, and the 
eiforts of the antislavery minority in Congress to save Kansas for 
freedom. Says the classmate, Mr. Lavallette "Wilson, of New 
York : " As Mr. Goodrich spoke, I sat at Garfield's side, and saw 
him drink in every word. He said, as we passed out, ' This subject 
is entirely new to me. I am going to know all about it.' " 

The following day ho sent for documents on the subject. He 
made a profound and careful study of the history of slavery, and 
of the heroic resistance to its encroachments. At the end of that 
investigation, his mind was made up. Other questions of the day, 
the dangers from foreign immigration, and from the Roman Catholic 
Church, the Crimean war, the advantage of an elective judiciary, 
were all eagerly debated by him in his society, but the central 
feature of his political creed was opposition to slavery. His views 
were moderate and practical. The type of his mind gave his opin- 
ions a broad conservatism, rather than a theoretical radicalism. 
Accordingly, when on June 17, 1856, the new-born Republican 
party unfurled its young banner of opposition to slavery and 
protection for Kansas, Garfield was ready for the party as the 
party was ready for him. 

It was shortly before his graduation, Avhen news of Fremont's 
nomination came, that the lively and enthusiastic collegians held 
a ratification meeting. There were several speakers, but Garfield, 
with his matured convictions, his natural aptitude for political 
debate, and his enthusiastic eloquence, far outshone his friends. 
The speech was received with tremendous applause, and it is most 
unfortunate that no report of it was made. It was natural that 
much should have been expected of this man by the boys of 
Williams. He seemed to be cast in a larger mold than the 
ordinary. The prophecy of the class was a seat in Congress 
within ten years. He reached it in seven. 

At graduation he received the honor of the metaphysical oration, 
one of the highest distinctions awarded to graduates. The subject 
of his address was: "Matter and Spirit; or, The Seen and Unseen." 
One who was present says : 

"The audience were wonderfully impressed with his oratory, 



THE MOENING OF POWER— GRADUATES AT WILLIAMS. 73 

and at the close there was a wild tumult of applause, and a shower- 
ing down upon him of beautiful bouquets of flowers by the ladies ;" 
a fitting close to the two years of privation, mortification and toil. 

Speaking of his mental characteristics, as developed at AVilliams, 
Ex-President Hopkins, one of the greatest metaphysicians of the 
age, writes: 

"One point in General Garfield's course of study, worthy of 
remark, was its evenness. There was nothing startling at any one 
time, and no special preference for any (5ne study. There was a 
large general capacity applicable to any subject, and sound sense. 
As he was more mature than most, he naturally had a readier and 
firmer grasp of the higher studies. Hence his appointment to the 
metaphysical oration, then one of the high honors of the class. 
What he did was done with facility, but by honest and avowed 
work. There was no pretense of genius, or alternation of spas- 
modic effort and of rest, but a satisfactory accomplishment in all 
directions of what was undertaken. Hence there was a steady, 
healthful, onward and upward progress." 

To pass over Garfield's college life without mention of the 
influence of President Hopkins upon his intellectual growth, 
would be to omit its most important feature. No man liveth to 
himself alone. The intellectual life of great men is largely deter- 
mined and directed by the few superior minds with which they 
come in contact during formative periods. The biography of 
almost any thinker will show that his intellectual growth was by 
epochs, and that each epoch was marked out and created by the 
influence of some maturer mind. The first person to exercise this 
power is, in most cases, the mother. This was the case with 
Garfield. The second person wdio left an indelible impression on 
his mental life, and supplied it with new nourishment and 
stimulant, was Miss Almeda Booth. The third person who exer- 
cised an overpowering personal influence upon him was Mark 
Hopkins. When Garfield came to Williams, his thought was 
strong, but uncultured. The crudities and irregularities of his 
unpolished manners were also present in his mind. 

He had his mental eye-sight, but he saw men as trees walking. 



74 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

But under the influence of Hopkins, the scales fell from his eyes. 
The vast and powerful intellect of the man who was stepping to 
the front rank of the world's thinkers, imparted its wealth of ideas 
to the big Ohioan. Through President Hopkins, Garfield's thought 
rose into the upper sky. Under the inspiration of the teacher's 
lectures and private conversation, the pupil's mind unfolded its 
immense calyx toward the sun of speculative thought. From this 
teacher Garfield derived the great ideas of law, of the regularity 
and system of the Universe, of the analogy between man and nature, 
of God as the First Cause, of the foundation of right conduct, of 
the correlation of forces, of the philosophy of history. In after 
years, Garfield always said that whatever perception he had of gen- 
eral ideas came from this great man. One winter in Washington 
the National Teachers' Association was in session, and Garfield fre- 
quently dropped in to take a share in the discussion. One day he 
said : " You are making a grand mistake in education in this country. 
You put too much money into brick and mortar, and not enough 
into brains. You build palatial school-houses with domes and 
toM-ers ; supply them with every thing beautiful and luxuriant, and 
then put puny men inside. The important thing is not what is 
taught, but the teacher. It is the teacher's personality which is 
the educator. I had rather dwell six months in a tent, with Mark 
Hopkins, and live on bread and water, than to take a six years' 
course in the grandest brick and mortar university on the conti- 
nent." 

With graduation came separation. The favorite walks around 
Williamstown were taken for the last time. The last farewells were 
said, the last grasp of the hand given, and Garfield turned his face 
toward his Ohio home. He was at once elected instructor in the 
ancient languages at the Western Eclectic Institute, later known 
as Hiram College. Two years later he became president of this 
institution, overrun with its four hundred pupils. The activities 
of the man during this period were immense. Following his own 
ideas of teaching, he surcharged the institution with his ])ersonality. 
The younger student, on entering, felt the busy life which animated 
the place. With his teaching, Garfield kept up an enormous 



A MORNING OF POWER.— COLLEGE PRESIDENT. 75 

amount of outside reading ; he delivered lectures on scientific and 
miscellaneous subjects, making some money by it; he engaged in 
public debates on theologic and scientific questions; he took the 
stump for the Republican party ; on Sundays he j)reached in the 
Disciples Church; in 1857 he took up the study of the law, mas- 
tered its fundamental principles, and was admitted to practice at 
the Cleveland bar on a certificate of two years' study. Yet with 
all this load on him, he impressed himself on each pupil in Hiram 
College as a personal friend. One of these. Rev. J. L. Darsie, 
gives a vivid picture of Garfield at this time : 

" I recall vividly his method of teaching. He took very kindly to me, 
and assisted me in various ways, because I was poor and was janitor of the 
buildings, and swept them out in the morning and built the fires, as he 
had done only six years before, when he was a pupil at the same school. 
He was full of animal spirits, and he used to run out on the green almost 
every day and play cricket with us. He was a tall, strong man, but 
dreadfully awkward. Every now and then he would get a hit on the nose, 
and he mufted his ball and lost his hat as a regular thing. He was left- 
handed, too, and that made him seem all the clumsier. But he was most 
powerful and very quick, and it was easy for us to understand how it was 
that he had acquired the reputation of whipping all the other mule-drivers 
on the canal, and of making himself the hero of that thoroughfare when 
he followed its tow-path ten years earlier. 

" Ko matter how old the pupils were, Garfield always called us by our 
first names, and kept himself on the most familiar terms with all. He 
played with us freely, scuffled with us sometimes, walked with us in 
walking to and fro, and we treated him out of the class-room just about 
as Ave did one another. Yet he was a most strict disciplinarian, and en- 
forced the rules like a martinet. He combined an affectionate and con- 
fiding manner with respect for order in a most successful manner. If he 
wanted to speak to a pupil, either for reproof or approbation, he would 
generally manage to get one arm around him and draw him close up to 
him. He had a peculiar way of shaking hands, too, giving a twist to 
}'our arm and draAving you right up to him. This sympathetic manner 
has helped him to advancement. When I Avas janitor he used sometimes 
to stop me and ask my opinion about this and that, as if seriously ad- 
vising with me. I can see now that my opinion could not have been of 



76 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAKFIELD. 

any value, and that he probably asked me partly to increase my self- 
respect, and partly to show me that he felt an interest in me. I certainly 
was his friend all the firmer for it. 

" I remember once asking him what was the best way to pursue a cer- 
tain study, and he said : ' Use several text-books. Get the views of 
different authors as you advance. In that way you can plow a broader 
furrow. I always study in that way.' He tried hard to teach us. to 
observe carefully and accurately. He was the keenest observer I ever 
saw. I think he noticed and numbered every button on our coats. 

"Mr. Garfield was very fond of lecturing to the school. He spoke 
two or three times a week, on all manner of topics, generally scientific, 
though sometimes literary or historical. He spoke with great freedom, 
never writing out what he had to say, and I now think that his lectures 
were a rapid compilation of his current reading, and that he threw it 
into this form partly for the purpose of impressing it on his own mind. 

" At the time I was at school at Hiram, Principal Garfield was a great 
reader, not omnivorous, but methodical, and in certain lines. He was 
the most industrious man I ever knew or heard of At one time he 
delivered lectures on geology, held public debates on spiritualism, 
preached on Sunday, conducted ihe recitations of five or six classes 
every day, attended to all the financial affairs of the school, was an active 
member of the legislature, and studied law to be admitted to the bar. 
He has often said that he never could have perfi)rmed this labor if it had 
not been for the assistance of two gifted and earnest women,— Mrs. Gar- 
field herself, his early schoolmate, who had followed her husband in his 
studies; and Miss Almeda A. Booth, a member of the faculty. The 
latter was a graduate of Oberlin, and had been a teacher of young Gar- 
field when he was a pupil ; and now that he had returned as head of the 
faculty, she continued to serve him .in a sort of motherly way as tutor 
and guide. When Garfield had speeches to make in the legislature or on 
the stump, or lectures to deliver, these two ladies ransacked the library 
by day, and collected facts and marked books for his digestion and use 
in the preparation of the discourses at night." 

In the canvass of 1877, after one of his powerful stump speeches. 
Garfield was lying on the grass, talking to an old friend of these 
Hiram days. Said he : 

" I have taken more solid comfort in the thing itself, and received more 



A MOKNING OF POWEE.— COLLEGE PRESIDENT. 77 

moral recompense and stimulus in after-life from capturing young men 
for an education than from any thing else in the world." 

"As I look back over my life thus far," he continued, "I think of 
nothing that so fills me with pleasure as the planning of these sieges, the 
revolving in my mind of plans for scaling the walls of the fortress ; of 
gaining access to the inner soul-life, and at last seeing the besieged party 
won to a fuller appreciation of himself, to a higher conception of life, 
and to the part he is to bear in it. The principal guards which I have 
found it necessary to overcome in gaining these victories ai-e the parents 
or guardians of the young men themselves. I particularly remember 
two such instances of capturing young men from their parents. Both of 
those boys are to-day educators of wide reputation — one president of a 
college, the other high in the ranks of graded school managers. Neither, 
in my opinion, would to-day have been above the commonest walks of 
life unless I or come one else had captured him. There is a period in 
every young man's life when a very small thing will turn him one way or 
the other. He is distrustful of himself, and uncertain as to Avhat he 
should do. His parents are poor, perhaps, and argue that he has more 
education than they ever obtained, and that it is enough. These parents 
are sometimes a little too anxious in regard to what their boys are 
going to do when they get through with their college course. They talk 
to the young men too much, and I have noticed that the boy who will 
make the best man is sometimes most ready to doubt himself. I always 
remember the turning period in my own life, and pity a young man at 
this stage from the bottom of my heart. One of the young men I refer 
to came to me on the closing day of the spring term and bade me go(fd- 
bye at my study. I noticed that he awkwardly lingered after I expected 
him to go, and had turned to my writing again. ' I suppose you will be 
back again in the fall, Henry,' I said, to fill in the vacuum. He did not 
answer, and, turning toward him, I noticed that his eyes were filled with 
tears, and that his countenance was undergoing contortions of pain. 

"He at length managed to stammer out: 'No, I am not coming back 
to Hiram any more. Father says I have got education enough, and 
that he needs me to work on the farm ; that education don't help along 
a farmer any.' 

" 'Is your father here?' I asked, almost as much affected by the state- 
ment as the boy himself. He was a peculiarly bright boy — one of those 
strong, awkAvard, bashful, blonde, large-headed fellows, such as make 



78 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

men. He was not a prodigy by any means. But lie knew what work 
meant, and when he had won a thing by the true endeavor, he knew its 
value. 

" ' Yes, father is here, and is taking my things home for good,' said 
the boy, more affected than ever. 

" ' Well, don't feel badly,' I said. ' Please tell him that Mr. Garfield 
would like to see him at his study before he leaves the village. Don't 
tell him that it is about you, but simply that I want to see him.' In 
the course of half an hour the old gentleman, a robust specimen of a 
Western Eeserve Yankee, came into the room, and a\Ykwardly sat down. 
I knew something of the man before, and I thouglit I knew how to 
begin. I shot right at the bull's-eye immediately. 

"'So you have come up to take Henry home with you, have you?' 
The old gentleman answered : ' Yes.' ' I sent for you because I wanted 
to have a little talk with you about Henry's future. He is coming back 
again in the fall, I hope?' 

" 'Wal, I think not. I don't reckon I can afford to send him any 
more. He's got eddication enough for a farmer already, and I notice 
that when they git too much they sorter git lazy. Yer eddicated farmers 
are humbugs. Henry 's got so far 'long now that he 'd rother hev his 
head in a book than be workin'. He don't take no interest in the stock, 
nor in the farm improvements. Every body else is dependent in this 
world on the farmer, and I think that we've got too many eddicated 
fellows settin' round now for the farmers to support.' 

'" I am sorry to hear you talk so,' I said ; ' for really I consider Henry 
one of the brightest and most faithful students I ever had. I have taken 
a very deep interest in him. What I wanted to say to you was, that 
the matter of educating him has largely been a constant out-go thus far ; 
but, if he is permitted to come next fall term, he will be far enough 
advanced so that he can teach school in the winter, and begin to help 
himself and you along. He can earn very little on the farm in winter, 
and he can get very good wages teaching. How does that strike you ? ' 

"The idea was a new and a good one to him. He simply remarked: 
' Do you really think he can teach next winter?' 

" ' I should think so, certainly,' I replied. 'But if he can not do so 
then, he can in a short time, anyhow.' 

" ' Wal, I will think on it. He wants to come back bad enough, and I 
guess I'll have to let him. I never thought of it that way afore.' 



A MORNING OF POWER.— COLLEGE PRESIDENT. 79 

" I knew I was safe. It was the financial question that troubled the 
old gentleman, and I knew that would be overcome when Henry got to 
teaching, and could earn his money himself. He would then be so far 
along, too, that he could fight his own battles. He came all right the 
next fall; and, after finishing at Hiram, graduated at an Eastern college." 

"The other man I spoke of was a different case. I knew that this youth 
was going to leave mainly for financial reasons also, but I understood his 
father well enough to know that the matter must be managed with ex- 
ceeding delicacy. He was a man of very strong religious convictions, 
and I thought he might be approached from that side of his character ; 
so when I got the letter of the son telling me, in the saddest language 
that he could muster, that he could not come back to school any more, 
but must be content to be simply a farmer, much as it was against his 
inclination, I revolved the matter in my mind, and decided to send an 
appointment to preach in the little country church where the old gentle- 
man attended. I took for a subject the parable of the talents, and, in the 
course of my discourse, dwelt specially upon the fact that children were 
the talents which had been intrusted to parents, and, if these talents were 
not increased and developed, there was a fearful trust neglected. After 
church, I called upon the parents of the boy I was besieging, and I saw 
that something was weighing upon their minds. At length the subject of 
the discourse was taken up and gone over again, and, in due course, the 
young man himself was discussed, and I gave my opinion that he should, 
by all means, be encouraged and assisted in taking a thorough course of 
study. I gave my opinion that there was nothing more important to the 
parent than to do all in his power for the child. The next term the young 
man again appeared upon Hiram Hill, and remained pretty continuously 
till graduation." 

One relic of his famous debates at this time, on the subject of 
Christianity, still exists in a letter written to President Hinsdale, 
which we give : 

"Hiram, January 10, 1859. 

"The Sunday after the debate I spoke in Solon on ' Geology and 
Religion,' and had an immense audience. Many Spiritualists were 
out. . . , The reports I hear from the debate are much more de- 
cisive than I expected to hear. I received a letter from Bro. Collins, 
of Chagrin, in which he says: 'Since the smoke of the battle has par- 
tially cleared away, we begin to see more clearly the victory we have 



80 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

gained.' I have yet to see the first man who claims that Denton ex- 
plains his position ; but they are all jubilant over his attack on the Bible. 
What you suggest ought to be clone I am about to undertake. I go there 
next Friday or Saturday evening, and remain over Sunday. I am bound 
to cai-ry the war into Carthage, and pursue that miserable atheism to its 
hole. 

" Bro. Collins says that a few Christians are quite unsettled because 
Denton said, and I admit, that the world has existed for millions of years. 
I am astonished at the ignorance of the masses on these subjects. Hugh 
INIiller has it right when he says that ' the battle of the evidences must 
now be fought on the field of the natural sciences.' " 

In the year preceding the date which this letter bears, the sweet 
romance of his youth reached its fruition, in the marriage of Gar- 
field to Lucretia Rudolph. During the years which of necessity 
elapsed since the first-whispered vows, on the eve of his departure 
to Williams, the loving, girlish heart had been true. They began 
life, " for better for worse," in an humble cottage fronting on the 
waving green of the college campus. In their happy hearts rose 
no picture of another cottage, fronting on the ocean, where, in the 
distant years, what God had joined man was to put asunder. Well 
for them was it that God veiled the future from them. 

But the enormous activities already enumerated of this man did 
not satisfy his unexhausted powers. The political opinions formed 
at college began to bear fruit. In those memorable years just pre- 
ceding the outbreak of the Rebellion— the years " when the grasp- 
ing power of slavery was seizing the virgin territories of the West, 
and dragging them into the den of eternal bondage ; " the years 
of the underground railroad and of the fugitive slave law ; of 
the overseer and the blood-hound ; the years of John Browai's he- 
roic attempt to incite an insurrection of the slaves themselves, such 
as had SAvept every shackle from San Domingo ; of his mockery 
trial, paralleled only by those of Socrates and Jesus, and of his 
aAvful martyrdom, — the genius of the man, whose history this is, 
was not asleep. The instincts of resistance to oppression, and of 
sympathy for the oppressed, which he inherited from his daunt- 
less ancestry, began to stir within him. As the times became 



THE MORNING OF POWER.— STATE SENATOR. 81 

more and more stormy, his spirit rose with the emergency, and 
he threw his strength into political speeches. Already looked upon 
as the rising man of his portion of the State, it was natural that 
the people should turn to him for leadershij). In 1859, he was 
nominated and elected to the State Senate, as member from Port- 
age and Summit counties. 

The circumstances attending Garfield's first nomination for office 
are worthy to be recounted. It was in 1859, an oif year in poli- 
tics. Portage County was a doubtful battle-field ; generally it had 
gone Democratic, but the Republicans had hopes when the ticket 
was fortified with strong names. The convention was held in Au- 
gust, in the town of Ravenna. There was a good deal of beating 
about to find a suitable candidate for State Senator. At length a 
member of the convention arose and said: "Gentlemen, I can 
name a man whose standing, character, ability and industry will 
carry the county. It is President Garfield, of the Hiram school." 
The proposition took with the convention, and Garfield was there 
upon nominated by acclamation. 

It was doubtful whether he would accept. The leaders of the 
church stoutly opposed his entering into politics. It would ruin 
his character, they said. At Chagrin Falls, at Solon, at Hiram 
and other places where he had occasionally preached in the Dis- 
ciples' meeting-houses, there was alarm at the prospect of the pop- 
ular young professor going off into the vain- struggle of worldly 
ambition. In this juncture of affairs, the yearly meeting of the 
Disciples took place in Cuyahoga County, and among other topics 
of discussion, the Garfield matter was much debated. Some re- 
gretted it ; others denounced it ; a few could not see why he should 
not accept the nomination. " Can not a man," said they, " be a 
gentleman and a politician too ? " In the afternoon Garfield him- 
self came into the meeting. Many besought him not to accept 
the nomination. He heard what they had to say. He took counsel 
with a few trusted friends, and then made up his mind. " I believe," 
said he, " that I can enter political life and retain my integrity, man- 
hood and religion. I believe that there is vastly more need of manly 
men in politics than of preachers. You know I never deliberately 



82 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

decided to follow preaching as a life work any more than teaching. 
Circumstances have led me into both callings. The desire of breth- 
ren to have me preach and teach for them, a desire to do good in all 
ways that I could, and to earn, in noble callings, something to pny 
my way through a course of study, and to discharge debts, and 
the discipline and cultivation of mind in preaching and teaching, 
and the exalted topics for investigation in teaching and preaching, 
have led me into both callings. I have never intended to devote 
my life to either, or both ; although lately Providence seemed to 
be hedging my way and crowding me into the ministry. I have 
always intended to be a lawyer and perhaps to enter political 
life. Such has been my secret ambition ever since I thought of 
such things. I have been reading law for some time. This nom- 
ination opens the way, I believe, for me to enter into the life work I 
have always preferred. I have made up my mind. Mother is at Ja- 
son Robbins'. I will go there and talk with her. She has had a hope 
and desire that I would devote my life to preaching ever since I 
joined the church. My success as a preacher has been a great 
satisfaction to her. She regarded it as the fulfillment of her wishes, 
and has, of late, looked upon the matter as settled. If she will 
give her consent, I will accept the nomination." 

He accordingly went to his mother, and received this reply : 
"James, I have had a hope and a desire, ever since you joined the 
church, that you would preach. I have been happy in your suc- 
cess as a preacher, and regarded it as an answer to my prayers. 
Of late, I had regarded the matter as settled. But I do not want 
my wishes to lead you into a life work that you do not prefer to 
all others— much less into the ministry, unless your heart is in it. 
If you can retain your manhood and religion in political life, and 
believe you can do the most good there, you have my full consent 
and prayers for your success. A mother's prayers and blessing 
will be yours." With this answer as his assurance, he accepted 
the nomination, and placed his foot on the first round in the 
aspiring ladder. 

From this time on, Garfield ceased forever to be a private citizen, 
and must thereafter be looked on as a public man. Twenty-eight 



THE MORNING OF POWER.— ORATION AT RAVENNA. 83 

years of age, a giant in body and mind, of spotless honor and tire- 
less indnstry, it was inevitable that Garfield should become a leader 
of the Ohio Senate. During his first winter in the legislature, his 
powers of debate and his varied knowledge gave him conspic- 
uous rank. A committee report, drawn by his hand, upon the 
Geological Survey of Ohio, is a State document of high order, 
revealing a scientific knowledge and a power to group statistics and 
render them eifective, which would be looked at with wide-eyed 
wonder by the modern State legislator. Another report on the 
care of pauper children ; and a third, on the legal regulation of 
weights and measures, presenting a succinct sketch of the attempts 
at the thing, both in Europe and America, are equally notable as 
completely out of the ordmary rut of such papers. During this 
and the following more exciting winter at Columbus, he, somehow, 
found time to gratify his passion for literature, spending many 
evenings in the State library, and carrying out an elaborate sys- 
tem of annotation. But Garfield's chief activities in the Ohio leg- 
islature did not lie in the direction of peace. The times became 
electric. Men felt that a terrible crisis upon the slavery and States- 
rights questions was approaching. The campaign of 1860, in which 
Abraham Lincoln, the Great Unknown, was put forward as the 
representative of the anti-slavery party, was in progress. In the 
midst of the popular alarm, which was spreading like sheet lightning 
over the Eepublic, Garfield's faith in the perpetuity of the nation 
was unshaken. His oration at Ravenna, Ohio, on July 4, 1860, 
contains the following passage : 

"Our nation's future — shall it be perpetual? Shall the expanding 
circle of its beneficent influence extend, widening onward to the farthest 
shore of time? Shall its sun rise higher and yet higher, and shine with 
ever-brightening luster? Or, has it passed the zenith of its glory, and 
left us to sit in the lengthening shadows of its coming night? Shall 
power from beyond the sea snatch the proud banner from us? ShaU 
civil dissension or intestine strife rend the fair fabric of the Union f The 
rulers of the Old World have long and impatiently looked to see fulfilled 
the prophecy of its downfall. Such philosophers as Coleridge, Alison 
and Macaulay have, severally, set forth the reasons for this prophecy— 



84 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

the chief of which is, that the element of stability in our Government 
will sooner or later bring upon it certain destruction. This is truly a 
grave charge. But whether instability is an element of destruction or of 
safety, depends wholly upon the sources whence that instability springs. 

' ' The granite hills are not so changeless and abiding as the restless 
sea. Quiet is no certain pledge of permanence and safety. Ti-ees may 
flourish and flowers may bloom upon the quiet mountain side, while 
silently the trickling rain-drops are filling the deep cavern behind its 
rocky barriers, which, by and by, in a single moment, shall hurl to wild 
ruin its treacherous peace. It is true, that in our land there is no such 
outer quiet, no such deceitful repose. Here society is a restless and 
surging sea. The roar of the billows, the dash of the wave, is forever in 
our ears. Even the angry hoarseness of breakers is not unheard. But 
there is an understratum of deep, calm sea, which the breath of the 
wildest tempest can never reach. There is, deep down in the hearts of 
the American people, a strong and abiding love of our country and its 
liberty, which no surface-storms of passion can ever shake. That kind 
of instability which arises from a free movement and interchange of 
position among the members of society, which brings one drop to glisten 
for a time in the crest of the highest wave, and then gives place to another, 
while it goes down to mingle again with the millions below ; such insta- 
bility is the surest pledge of permanence. On such instability the 
eternal fixedness of the universe is based. Each planet, in its circling 
orbit, returns to the goal of its departure, and on the balance of these 
wildly-rolling spheres God has planted the broad base of His mighty 
works. So the hope of our national perpetuity rests upon that perfect 
individual freedom, which shall forever keep up the circuit of perpetual 
change. God forbid that the waters of our national life should ever 
settle to the dead level of a waveless calm. It would be the stagnation 
of death — the ocean grave of individual liberty." 

Meanwhile blacker and blacker grew the horizon. Abraham 
Lincoln was elected President, but it brought no comfort to the 
anxious North. Yet, even then, but few men thought of war. 
The winter of 1860-'61 came on, and with it the reassem- 
bling of the State legislatures. Rising with the emergency 
Garfield's statesmanship foresaw the black and horrible fate of 
civil war. The following letter by him to his friend, President 



THE MORNING OF POWER. 85 

Hinsdale, was prophetic of the war, and of the rise of an Unknown 
to " ride ujjon the storm and direct it " : 

Columbus, January 15, 1861. 
'f My heart and thoughts are full almost every moment with the terrible 
reality of our country's condition. We have learned so long to look upon 
the convulsions of European states as things wholly impossible here, that 
the people are slow in coming to the belief that there may be any break- 
ing up of our institutions, but stern, awful certainty is fastening upon 
the hearts of men. I do not see any way, outside a miracle of God, ivhich 
can avoid civil loar, with all its attendant horrors. Peaceable dissolution is 
utterly impossible. Indeed, I can not say that I would wish it possible. 
To make the concessions demanded by the South would be hypocritical 
and sinful ; they would neither be obeyed nor respected. ' I am inclined 
to believe that the sin of slavery is one of which it may be said that 
Avithout the shedding of blood there is no remission. All that is left us 
as a State, or say as a company of Northern States, is to arm and 
prepare to defend ourselves and the Federal Government. I believe the 
doom of slavery is drawing near. Let war come, and the slaves will get 
the vague notion that it is waged for them, and a magazine will be 
lighted whose explosion will shake the whole fabric of slavery. Even" 
if all this happen, I can not yet abandon the belief that one government 
will ride this continent, and its people be one people. 

"Meantime, what will be the influence of the times on individuals? 
Your question is very interesting and suggestive. The doubt that hangs 
over the Avhole issue bears touching also It may be the duty of our 
young men to join the army, or they may be drafted without their own 
consent. If neither of these things happen, there will be a period when 
old men and young will be electrified by the spirit of the times, and one 
result will be to make every individuality more marked, aud their 
opinions more decisive. I believe the times will be even more favorable 
than calm ones for the formation of strong will and forcible characters. 

"Just at this time (have you observed the fact?) we have no man 
who has power to ride upon the storm and direct it. The hour has come, 
but not the man. The crisis will make many such. But I do not love to 
speculate on so painful a theme. I am chosen to respond to a toast on 
the Union at the State Printers' Festival here next Thursday evening. 
It is a sad and difiicult theme at this time." 



86 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

This letter is the key to Garfiekl's record in the Ohio Senate. 
On the 24th of January he championed a bill to raise and equip 
GjOOO State militia. The timid, conservative and politically blind 
members of the legislature he worked with both day and night, 
botih on and oif the floor of the Senate, to prepare them for the 
crisis which his genius foresaw. But as his prophetic vision leaped 
from peak to peak of the mountain difficulties of the future, he 
saw not only armies in front, but traitors in the rear. He drew up 
and put through to its passage a bill defining treason — " providing 
that when Ohio's soldiers go forth to maintain the Union, there 
shall be no treacherous fire in the rear." 

In the hour of darkness his trumpet gave no uncertain sound. 
He was for coercion, without delay or doubt. 

He was the leader of Avhat was known as the " Radical Trium- 
virate," composed of J. D. Cox, James Monroe, and himself — the 
three men who, by their exhaustless efforts, wheeled Ohio into 
line for the war. The Ohio legislature was as blind as a bat. 
Tico days after Sumter had been fired, on, the Ohio Senate, over the 
desperate ^protests of the man who had for months foreseen the war, 
passed the Corwin Constitutioiial Amendment, providing that Con- 
gress should have no power ever to legislate on the question of slavery ! 
Notwithstanding this blindness, through the indomitable zeal of 
Garfield and his colleagues, Ohio was the first State in the North 
to reach a war footing. When Lincoln's call for 75,000 men 
reached the legislature. Senator Garfield was on his feet instantly, 
moving, amid tumultuous cheers, that 20,000 men and ^3,000,000 
be voted as Ohio's quota. In this ordeal, the militia formerly 
organized proved a valuable help. 

The inner history of this time will probably never be fully writ- 
ten. Almost every Northern legislative hall, particularly in 
border States, was the scene of a coup d'etat. Without law or 
precedent, a few determined men broke down the obstacles with 
which treason hedged the path of patriotism. As we have said, 
the inner history of those high and gallant services, of the midnight 
counsels, the forced loans, the unauthorized proclamations, will 
never be written. All that will be known to history will be that, 



THE MORNING OF POWER.— CIVIL WAR. 87 

when the storm of treason broke, every Northern State wheeled 
into line of battle ; and it is enough. 

Of Garfield it is known that he became at once Governor Den- 
nison's valued adviser and aid. The story of one of his services 
to the Union has leaked out. After the attack on Sumter, the 
State capital was thronged with men ready to go to war, but there 
were no guns. Soldiers without guns were a mockery. In this 
extremity it was found out that at the Illinois arsenal Mas a 
large quantity of muskets. Instantly, Garfield started to Illinois 
with a requisition. By swift diplomacy he secured and shipped 
to Columbus five thousand stand of arms, a prize valued at the 
time more than so many recruits. But while the interior history 
of the times will never be fully known, the exterior scenes are 
still fresh in memory. The opening of the muster-rolls, the inces- 
sant music of martial bands, the waving of banners, the shouts of 
the drill-sergeant, the departure of crowded trains carrying the 
brave and true to awful fields of blood and glory, — all this we 
know and remember. The Civil War was upon us, and James 
A. Garfield, in the morning of his power, was to become a soldier 
of the Union. 



88 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 



CHAPTER ly. 

A SOLDIER OF THE UNION. 

And there was mounting in liot haste — the steed, 
The mustering squadron, and the clattering car 

Went pouring forward with impetuous speed 

And swiftly forming in the ranks of "war ! — Byron. 

HONOR to the West Point soldier! War is his business, 
and, wicked though wars be, the warrior shall still receive 
his honor due. By his devotion to rugged discipline, the pro- 
fessional soldier preserves war as a science, so that armies may 
not be rabbles, but organizations. He divests himself of the full 
freedom of a citizen, and puts himself under orders for all time. 

One of our ablest leaders in the Civil War was General George 
H. Thomas. Of Thomas we learn, from an address of Garfield, 
that " in the army he never leaped a grade, either in rank or com- 
mand. He did not command a company until after long service 
as a lieutenant. He commanded a regiment only at the end of 
many years of company and garrison duty. He did not command 
a brigade until after he had commanded his regiment three years 
on the Indian frontier. He did not command a division until after 
he had mustered in, organized, disciplined, and commanded a 
brigade. He did not command a corps until he had led his di- 
vision in battle, and through many hundred miles of hostile 
country. He did not command the army until, in battle, at the 
head of his corps, he had saved it from ruin." This is appren- 
ticeship with all its hardships, but with all its benefits. 

In our popular praises of the wonders performed by the great 
armies of citizens which sprang up in a few days, let it never be 
forgotten that the regular army, with its discipline, was the " little 
leaven " which spread its martial virtues through the entire forces; 
that the AVest Point soldier was the man whose skill organized 



A SOLDIEK OF THE UNION.— THE VOLUNTEEK. 



89 



these grand armies, and made it possible for them to gain their 
victories. 

Honor to the vokuiteer soklier ! He is history's greatest hero. 
What kind of apprenticeship for war has he served? To learn 
this, let US go back to the peaceful time of 1860, when the grim- 
visa ged mon- 
ster's " wrinkled 
front " was yet 
smooth. Now, 
look through 
the great iron- 
working district 
of Pennsylvania, 
with its miles of 
red-mouthed fur- 
naces, its thou- 
sand kinds of 
manufactures, 
and its ten thou- 
sands of skilled 
workmen. Num- 
ber the civil engi- 
neers; count the 
miners ; go into 
the various 
places where 
crude metals and 
other materials 

are worked up into every shape known, to meet the necessities of 
the modern arts. These are the sources of military power. Here 
are the men who will build bridges, and equip railroads for army 
transportation, almost in the twinkling of an eye. Cast your 
mind's eye back into all the corners of the land, obscure or con- 
spicuous, and in every place you shall see soldiers being trained.' 
They are not yet in line, and it does not look like a military array; 
the farmer at his plow, the scholar and the professional man at 




GENERAL GEORGE H. THOMAS. 



90 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

the desk, are all getting ready to be soldiers. No nation is better 
prepared for war than one which has been at peace ; for war is a 
consumer of arts, of life, of physical resources. And we had a 
reserve of those very things accumulating, as we still have all the 
time. 

Europe, with its standing armies, stores gunpowder in guarded 
magazines. America has the secret of gunpowder, and uses the 
saltpeter and other elements for civil purposes; believing that 
there is more explosive power in knowing how to make an ounce 
of powder than there is in the actual ownership of a thousand 
tons of the very stuif itself. The Federal army had not gone 
through years of discipline in camp, but it was no motley crowd. 
Its units were not machines ; they were better than machines ; they 
were men. 

James A. Garfield became a volunteer, a citizen soldier. The 
manner of his going into the army was as strikingly characteristic 
of him as any act of his life. In a letter written from Cleveland, 
on June 14, 1861, to his life-long friend, B. A. Hinsdale, he said : 

"The Lientenant-Colonelcy of the Twenty-fourth Regiment has been 
tendered to me, and the Goveruor urges me to accept. I am greatly 
perplexed on the question of duty. I shall decide by Monday next." 

But he did not then go. For such a man, capable of so many 
things, duty had many calls, in so many different directions, that 
he could not easily decide. How Garfield was affected by the 
temptation to go at once may be seen in a letter of July 12, 1861, 
written from Hiram, to Hinsdale, wherein he says : " I hardly 
knew myself, till the trial came, how much of a struggle it would 
cost me to give up going into the army. I found I had so fully 
interested myself in the war that I hardly felt it possible for me 
not to be a part of the movement. But there were so many who 
could fill the office tendered to me, and would covet the place, 
more than could do my work here, perhaps, that I could not but 
feel it would be to some extent a reckless disregard of the good 
of others to accept. If there had been a scarcity of volunteers I 
should have accepted. The time may yet come when I shall feel 



A SOLDIER OF THE UNION.— RAISING TROOPS. 91 

it right and necessary to go ; but I thought, on the whole, that 
time had not yet come." 

But the time was at hand. Garfield had become known and appre- 
ciated, and he was wanted. On July 27, Governor Dennison wrote 
to him : " I am organizing some new regiments. Can you take a 
lieutenant-colonelcy ? I am anxious you should do so. Reply by 
telegraph." Garfield was not at home when this letter was sent, but 
found it waiting for him on his return, August 7. That night wa.s 
passed in solemn thought and prayer ; face to face with his country's 
call, this man began to realize as he had not before done, what 
"going to war" meant. He began to consider the sacrifice which 
must be made, and found that in his case there was more to give 
up than with most men. How many thousands of volunteers have 
thought the same ! Garfield's prospects in life were very fine in 
the line of work for which he had prepared himself. He was a 
fine scholar, and on the road to distinguished success. Moreover, 
he had a dearly loved wife and a little child, his soul's idol. Who 
Mould provide for them after the war if he should fall victim to a 
Southern bullet? He had only three thousand dollars to leave 
them. After all, willing as he was, it was no easy thing to do. 
So it took a night of hard study ; a night of prayer, a night of 
Bible reading, a night of struggle with the awful call to arms ; but 
when the morning dawned, a great crisis had passed, and a final 
decision had been made. The letter of Governor Dennison was 
answered that he would accept a lieutenant-colonelcy, provided the 
colonel of the regiment was a West Point graduate. The condition 
was complied with already. On the 16th of August, Garfield re- 
ported for duty, and received his commission. His first order was 
to " report in person to Brigadier-General Hill, for such duty as he 
may assign to you in tonnection with a temporary command for pur- 
poses of instruction in camp-duty and discipline." In pursuance of 
these instructions he went immediately to Hill's head-quarters at 
Camp Chase, near Columbus. Here he staid during the next four 
months, studying the art of war ; being absent only at short periods 
when in the recruiting service. In the business of raising troops 
he was very successful. The Forty-second O. Y. I. was about 



92 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

to be organized, and Gurfield raised the first company. It was in 
this wise: Late in August he returned to Hiram and announced 
that at a certain time he would speak on the subject of the war and 
its needs, especially of men. A full house greeted him at the ap- 
pointed hour. He made an eloquent appeal, at the close of which 
a large enrollment took place, including sixty Hiram students. In 
a few days the company was full, and he took them to Camp Chase, 
where they were named Company A, and assigned to the right of 
the still unformed regiment. On September 5th, Garfield was made 
Colonel, and pushed forward the work, so that in November the 
requisite number was secured. 

Meanwliile the work of study and discipline was carried on at 
Camp Chase with even more than Garfield's customary zeal. The 
new Coh)ncl was not an unwilling citizen in a soldier's uniform. 
He had boon transformed through and through into a military man. 
He himself shall tell the story: 

"I have had a curious interest in watching the process in my own mind, 
by which the fabric of my life is being demolished and reconstructed, to 
meet the new condition of affairs. One by one my old plans and aims, 
modes of thought and feeling, are found to be inconsistent with present 
duty, and are set aside to give place to the new structure of military life. 
It is not without a regret, almost tearful at times, that I look upon the 
ruins. But if, as the result of the broken i^lans and shattered individual 
lives of thousands of American citizens, we can see on the ruins of our 
old national errors a new and enduring fabric arise, based on larger free- 
dom and higher justice, it will be a small sacrifice indeed. For myself I 
am contented with such a prospect, and, regarding my life as given to 
the country, am only anxious to make as much of it as possible before 
the mortgage upon it is foreclosed." 

During the fall of 1861, Colonel Garfield had to perform three 
duties. First, to learn the tactics and study the books on military 
affairs; second, to initiate his officers into the like mysteries, and 
see that they became well informed ; and, finally, to so discipline and 
drill the whole regiment that they would be ready at an early day 
to go to the front. In pursuance of these objects he devoted to 
their accomplishment his entire time. At night, when alone, he 



A SOLDIER OF THE UNION.— JOINS GEN. BUELL. 93 

studied, probably even harder than ho had ever done as a boy at 
Hiram. For there he had studied with a purpose in view, but 
remote ; here the end was near, and knowledge was power in deed 
as well as word. Every-day recitations Avere held of the officers, 
and this college President in a few weeks graduated a well- 
trained military class. The Forty-second Regiment itself, thus 
well-officered, and composed of young men of intelligence, the 
very flower of the Western Reserve, was drilled several hours 
every day with the most careful attention. Every thing was done 
promptly, all things were in order, for the Colonel had his eye on 
each man, and the Colonel knew the equipments and condition of 
his regiment better than any other man. After all, great events 
generally have visibly adequate causes ; and when we see Garfield's 
men win a victory the first time they see the enemy, we shall not 
be surprised, for we can not think how it could be otherwise. 

On December 15th an order came which indicated that the 
Forty-second was wanted in Kentucky. General Buell was Com- 
mander of the Department of the Ohio. His head-quarters were 
at Louisville. At nine o'clock on the evening of the 16th 
they reached Cincinnati. From this point, in compliance with 
new orders received, the regiment was sent on down the Ohio to Cat- 
lettsburg, where a few hundred Union troops wore gathered already ; 
and Garfield himself went to Louisville to learn the nature of the 
work he had before him. Arriving on the evening of the 16th, 
he reported to his superior at once. 

Don Carlos Buell was at this time forty-three years of age; a 
man accomplished in military science and experienced in war. 
He had first learned the theory of his business at West Point, 
where he had graduated in 1842; and besides other service to his 
country he had distinguished himself in the war with Mexico. 
What a contrast to Garfield ! The latter was only thirty years of 
age, and just five years out of college. The only knowledge he 
possessed to prepare him for carrying out the still unknown duty, 
'had been gathered out of books; which, by the way, are not equal 
to West Point nor to a war for learning how to fight. Now what 
could be the enterprise! in which the untried Forty-second should 



94 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAKFIEI.D. 

bear a part? And who is the old head, the battle-scarred hero, 
to lead the expedition? We shall see. 

Taking a ma}) of Kentucky, Buell briefly shoAved Garfield a 
problem, and told him to solve it. In a word, the question was, 
how shall the Confederate forces be chased out of Kentucky? 
The rebels badly needed Kentucky; so did the Union. Having 
shown Garfield what the business was, Buell told him to go to his 
quarters for the night, and at nine o'clock next morning be ready 
to submit his plan for a campaign. Garfield immediately shut 
himself up in a room, with no company but a map of Kentucky. 
The situation was as follows : Humphrey Marshall, with several 
thousand Confederate troops, was rapidly taking possession of east- 
ern Kentucky. Entering from Virginia, through Pound Gap, he 
had quickly crossed Pike County into Floyd, where he had forti- 
fied himself, somewhere not far from Prestonburg, and was prepar- 
ing to increase his force and advance farther. His present situa- 
tion was at the head of the Big Sandy River. Catlettsburg, where 
the Forty-second had gone, is at the mouth of this river. 

Also, on the southern border, an invasion from Tennessee was 
being made by a body of the Confederates, under Zollicoffer. 
These were advancing toward Mill Spring, and the intention was 
that Zollicoffer and Marshall should join their forces, and so in- 
crease the rebel influence in the State that secession would immedi- 
ately follow. For Kentucky had refused to secede, and this inva- 
sion of her soil was a violation of that very cause of State's Rights 
for which they were fighting. 

Garfield studied this subject with tireless attention, and when 
day dawned he was also beginning to see daylight. At nine o'clock 
he reported. The plan he recommended was, in substance, that a 
regiment be left, first, some distance in the interior, say at Paris or 
Lexington, this mainly for eflect on the people of that section. 
The next thing was to proceed up the Big Sandy River against 
Marshall, and run him back into Virginia ; after which it would be 
in order to move westward, and, in conjunction with other forces, 
keep the State from falling into hostile hands. Meanwhile, Zolli- 
coffer would have to be taken off" by a separate expedition. 



A SOLDIEK OF THE UNION.— ACTIVE SERVICE. 95 

Buell stood beside his young Colonel and listened. He glanced 
at the outline of the proposed campaign and saw that it was wisely 
planned. As a result — for Buell did nothing hastily — Colonel Gar- 
field was told that his instructions would be prej)ared soon, and 
he might call at six that evening. That evening he came, and 
learned the contents of Order No. 35, Army of the Ohio, which 
organized the Eighteenth Brigade, under the command of James 
A. Garfield, Colonel of the Forty-second O. V. I. The brigade 
itself was made up of the last-named regiment, the Fortieth 
O. V. I., Colonel J. Cranor.: Fourteenth K. V. I., Colonel L. D. F. 
Moore; Twenty-second K. V. I., Colonel D. W. Landsay, and 
eight companies of cavalry. 

Buell's instructions were contained in the following letter: 

" Headquarters Department of the Ohio, Louisville, Ky., Dec. 17, 1861. 

" Sir: The brigade organized under your command is intended to op- 
erate against the rebel force threatening, and, indeed, actually commit- 
ting depredations in Kentucky, through the valley of the Big Sandy. 
The actual force of the enemy, from the best information I can gather, 
does not probably exceed two thousand, or twenty-five hundred, though 
rumors place it as high as seven thousand. I can better ascertain the 
true state of the case when you get on the ground. 

" You are apprised of the condition of the troops under your command. 
Go first to Lexington and Paris, and place the Fortieth Ohio Regiment 
in such a position as will best give a moral support to the people in the 
counties on the route to Prestonburg and Piketon, and oppose any 
further advance of the enemy on the route. Then proceed with the least 
possible delay to the mouth of the Sandy, and move with the force in 
that vicinity up that river and drive the enemy back or cut him off. 
Having done that, Piketon will probably be in the best position for you to 
occupy to guard against future incursions. Artillery will be of little, if 
any, service to you in that country. If the enemy have any it will in- 
cumber and weaken rather than strengthen them. 

"Your supplies must mainly be taken up the river, and it ought to be 
done as soon as possible, while navigation is open. Purchase what you 
can in the country through which you operate. Send your requisitions 
to these head-quarters for funds and ordnance stores, and to the quarter- 
masters and commissary at Cincinnati for other supplies. 



96 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

"The conversation -I have had with you will suggest more details than 
can be given here. Report frequently on all matters concerning your 
command. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

"D. C. BUELL, 

"Brigadier-General commanding." 

On receipt of these instraictions, Garfield began instantly to carry 
them out. He telegraphed his forces at Catlettsburg to advance 
up the Big Sandy toAvards Paintville, Marshall's advance post. 
This he did that no delay should be occasioned by his absence. 
He then visited Colonel Cranor's regiment, and saw it well estab- 
lished at Paris. Returning thence, he proceeded to hasten after 
his own regiment, and reached Catlettsburg on the 20th of De- 
cember. Here he stopped to forw^ard supplies up the river to 
Louisa, an old half-deoayed village of the Southern kind, where he 
learned that his men were waiting for him. 

It was on this march from Catlettsburg to Louisa that the For- 
ty-second Ohio began, for the first time, that process of seasoning 
w'hich soon made veterans out of raw^ civilians. The hardships of 
tliat march were not such as an old soldier would think terrible; 
but for men who but five days before had left Columbus without 
any experience w^hatever, it was very rough. On the morning of the 
eighteenth the first division started, twenty-five mounted on 
horses, and one hundred going by boat. The cavalry got on very 
well ; but the river was quite low, and after a few miles of bump- 
ing along, the old boat finally stuck fast. Leaving this wrecked 
concern, the men started to tramp it overland. The country was 
exceedingly wild; the paths narrow^, leading up hill and down 
hill with monotonous regularity. That night wdien the tired fel- 
lows stopped to rest, they had advanced only eight miles. The 
next day, however, they reached Louisa, where the mounted com- 
pany had taken possession and prepared to stay ; meanwhile the 
remaining companies were on the road. Rain set in ; the north 
wind blew, and soon it was very cold. The steep, rocky paths 
scarcely aiforded room for the wagon-train, w^ose conveyances were 
lightened of their loads by throwing off many articles of comfort 
which these soldiers, with their unwarlike notions of life, hated 



A SOLDIER OF THE UNION.— ADVANCE ON PATNTVILLE. 97 

to lose. But advance they must, if only with knapsacks and 
muskets ; and on the twenty-first all were together again. About 
this time Garfield arrived. 

Paintville, where it was intended to attack Marshall, is on 
Painter Creek, near the west fork of the Big Sandy, about thirty 
miles above Louisa. The first thing to be done, therefore, Avas to 
cross that intervening space, very quickly, and attack the enemy 
without delay. A slow campaign would result in disaster. While 
this advance was being made, it would also be necessary to see 
to the matter of reenforcements; for Marshall had thirty-five hun- 
dred, Garfield not half as many. The only possible chance would 
be to communicate an order to the Fortieth Ohio, under Colonel 
Cranor, at Paris, one hundred miles away; that hundred miles 
was accessible to Marshall, and full of rebel sympathizers. The 
man who carried a dispatch to Cranor from Garfield, would carry 
his life in his hand, with a liberal chance of losing it. To find 
such a one, both able and willing for the task, would be like 
stumbling over a diamond in an Illinois corn-field. In his per- 
plexity, Garfield went to Colonel Moore, of the Fourteenth Ken- 
tucky, and said to him: "I must communicate with Cranor; some 
of your men know this section of country well ; have you a man 
we can fully trust for such a duty?" The Colonel knew such 
a man, and promised to send him to head-quarters. Directly the 
man appeared. He was a native of that district, coming from 
the head of the Baine, a creek near Louisa, and his name was 
John Jordan. What kind of a man he was has been well told by 
a writer in the Atlantic Monthly for October, 1865: 

" He was a tall, gaunt, sallow man of about thirty, with small gray 
eyes, a fine falsetto voice, pitched in the minor key, and his speech was 
the rude dialect of the mountains. His face had as many expressions as 
could he found in a regiment, and he seemed a strange combination of 
cunning, simplicity, undaunted courage, and undoubting faith; yet, 
though he might pass for a simpleton, he had a rude sort of wisdom, 
which, cultivated, might have given his name to history. 

"The young Colonel sounded him thoroughly, for the fate of the little 
army might depend on his fidelity. The man's soul was as clear as 
7 



98 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

crystal, and in ten minutes Garfield saw through it. His history is 
stereotyped in that region. Born among the hills, where the crops are 
stones, and sheep's noses are sharpened before they can nibble the thin 
grass between them, his life had been one of the. hardest toil and priva- 
tion. He knew nothing but what Nature, the Bible, the Course of Time, 
and two or three of Shakespeare's plays had taught him ; but, somehow, 
in the mountain air he had grown up to be a man — a man, as civilized 
nations account manhood. 

" 'Why did you come into the war?' at last asked the Colonel. 

" 'To do my sheer fur the kentry, Gin'ral,' answered the man. 'And 
I didn't druv no barg'in wi' th' Lord. I guv him my life squar' out ; and 
ef he's a mind ter tack it on this tramp, why, it's a his'n ; I've nolhin' 
ter say agin it.' 

" 'You mean that you've come into the war not expecting to get out 
of it?' 

" 'That's so, Gin'ral.' 

" ' Will you die rather than let the dispatch be taken ?' 

'"I will.' 

"The Colonel recalled what had passed in his own mind when poring 
over his mother's Bible that night at his home in Ohio, and it decided 
him. ' Very well,' he said ; ' I will trust you.'" 

Armed with a carbine and a brace of revolvers, Jordan mounted 
tbe swiftest horse in the regiment, and was off at midnight. The 
dispatch was written on tissue paper, then folded closely into a 
round shape, and coated with lead to resemble a bullet. The car- 
rier rode till daylight, then hitched his horse in the timber, and 
\vent to a house wher^ he knew he would be well received. The 
lord of that house was a soldier in Marshall's little army, who 
served the Union there better than he could have done with a 
blue coat on. The lady of the house was loyal in a more open 
manner. Of course, the rebels knew of this mission, as they had 
spies in Garfield's camp, and a squad of cavalry were on Jordan's 
trail. They came up with him at this house ; hastily giving the 
precious bullet to the woman, he made her swear to see that it 
reached its destination, and then broke out toward the woods. 
Two horeemen were guarding the door. To get the start of them, 
as the door opened, he brandished a red garment before the horses, 



A SOLDIEK OF THE UNION.-ON THE MARCH. 99 

whicli scared them so that they "were, for a moment, unmanagea- 
ble. In an instant he was over the fence. But the riders were 
gaining. Flash, went the scout's revolver, and the one man was 
in eternity ! Flash, again, and the other man's horse fell ! Before 
the rest of the squad could reach the spot, Jordan was safely out 
of their power. That night the woman who had sheltered him 
carried the dispatch, and a good meal, to a thicket near by, whither 
she was guided by the frequent hooting of an owl! And, after a 
ride of forty miles more, with several narrow escapes, the Colonel 
of the Forty-second at last read his orders from a crumpled piece 
of tissue paper. As for Jordan, he was back in Garfield's tent 
again two weeks later; but the faithful animal that carried him 
had fallen, pierced by a rebel ball. 

What, meanwhile, had been the progress of Garfield's forces in 
their attempt to reach Paintville ? On the morning of December 
23d, the first day's march began. The rains of the preceding days 
had been stopped by extreme cold, and the hills were icy and 
slippery. The night before this march very few of the men had 
slept ; but, instead of that, had crouched around camp-fires to keep 
from freezing. During the day they only advanced ten miles. In 
half that distance, one crooked little creek, which wound around in 
a labyrinth of coils, was crossed no less than twenty-six times. 
This was slow progress, but the following days were slower still. 
Provisions were scarce. Most of the wagon-train and equipments 
had been loaded on boats to be taken up the river, and the sup- 
plies that had started with them Avere far in the rear. To meet 
their necessities, the men captured a farmer's pigs and poultry with- 
out leave. Garfield, however, was no plunderer; he was a true 
soldier; and, after reprimanding the offenders, he repaid the farmer. 

On the 27th, a squad of Marshall's force was encountered, and 
two men captured. The next day the compliment was returned, 
and three Union soldiers became unwilling guests of the too hos- 
pitable South. Thus slowly advancing, in spite of bad weather 
and bad roads, skirmishing daily with the enemy, as the opposing 
forces neared each other, on the 6th day of January, 1862, the 
Eighteenth Brigade, except that portion which was coming from 



100 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

Paris, Avas encamped within seven miles of Paintville ; and at last 
it had become possible to bring things to a crisis, and determine, 
by the solemn wage of battle, who was entitled to this portion 
of Kentucky. 

Up to this time, Garfield had been moving almost in the dark. 
He did not know what had become of his message to Cranor; he 
did not know the exact position of his enemy ; he did not know 
the number of the enemy. Now we shall see good fortune and 
good management remedy each of these weaknesses in a single 
day. 

Harry Brown had been a canal hand with Garfield in 1847, and 
the latter, with his genial ways, had made Brown his friend. At 
this time, Brown was a kind of camp-follower, and not very well 
trusted by the officers. But he knew the region well where these 
operations were going on, and hearing that his old comrade was 
commander, he hastened to oifer his services as a scout. Garfield 
accepted, told him what he wanted, and through him learned very 
accurately the situation of the Confederate forces. On the night of 
the sixth, Jordan also appeared on the scene, with the information 
that Cranor was only two days' march behind. To crown all, a 
dispatch came from Buell, on the morning of the seventh, with a 
letter which had been intercepted. This letter was from Humphrey 
Marshall to his wife, and revealed the fact that his force was less 
than the country people, with their rebel sympathies, had repre- 
sented. It was determined to advance that day and attack the 
enemy at Paintville, where about one-third of them were posted. 

This attack on Paintville was a hazardous enterprise. In main 
strength, Marshall was so superior that Garfield's only hope was 
in devising some plan to outwit him. From the point of starting, 
there were three accessible paths; one on the west, striking Painter 
Creek opposite the mouth of Jenny Creek, three miles to the right, 
from the place to be attacked; one on the east, approaching that 
point from the left; and a third road, the most difficult of the 
three, straight across. Rebel pickets were thrown out on each 
road. Marshall was prepared to be attacked on one road, but 
never dreamed of a simultaneous approach of the enemy on all at 



A SOLDIEE OF THE UNION.— PAI^'TVILLE CAPTUEED. 



101 




once; and it was this misapprehension which defeated hini; First, 
a small detachment of infantry, supported by cavalry, attacked on 
the west, whereupon almost the entire rebel force was sent out to 
meet them. Shortly, a similar advance was made on the east, 
and the enemy retraced their steps for a defense in that direction. 
While they were thus held, the re- 
maining Union force drove in the 
pickets of the central path, who, 
finding the village empty, rushed 
on three miles further, to a partially 
fortified place where ]\Iarshall him- 
self was waiting. Thinking that 
Paintville was lost, he hastily or- 
dered all his forces to retreat, which 
they did, as far as this fortified camp. 
Garfield entered Paintville at the 
same time, having with him the 
Forty-second Ohio, Fourteenth Ken- 
tucky, and four hundred Virginia 
cavalry. 

A portion of the cavalry were chasing the rebel horse, whom 
they followed five miles, killing three and wounding several. 
The Union force lost two killed and one wounded. The next day, 
the eighth of January, a fcM' hours rest was taken, while preparations 
were being made for another fight. But towards evening it was 
determined to advance. Painter Creek was too high to ford. But 
there was a saw-mill near by, and in an hour a raft was made 
upon which to cross. Marshall, being posted concerning this 
movement, was deliberating what to do, when a spy came in with 
the information that Colonel Cranor was approaching, with 3,300 
men. Alarmed at such an overpowering enemy, he burnt his 
stores and fled precipitately toward Petersburg. At nine o'clock that 
night, the Eighteenth Brigade was snugly settled in the late Con- 
federate camp. Here it appeared that every thing had been left 
suddenly, and in confusion ; meat was left cooking before the fire, 
and all preparations for the evening meal abandoned. This place 



OPERATIONS IX WEST VIRGINIA. 



102 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

was at the top of a hill, three hiindrecl feet high, covering about 
two acres, and would soon have been a strong fortification. 

On the ninth. Colonel Cranor did at last arrive, with his regi- 
ment, eight hundred strong, completely worn out with the long 
march. But Colonel Garfield felt that the present advantage must 
be pursued, or no permanent gain could result. So he raised 
1,100 men, who stepped from the ranks as volunteers, and imme- 
diately started on the trail of the enemy. 

The action which followed is knoM'u as the battle of Middle 
Creek. Eighteen miles further up the West Fork, along which 
they marched, two parallel creeks flow in between the hills; the 
northernmost one is Abbott's Creek, the next Middle Creek. It 
was evident that Marshall would place himself behind this double 
barrier and make a stand there, if he should endeavor to turn the 
tide of defeat at all. Toward this point the weary troops, there- 
fore, turned their steps. The way was so rough and the rains so 
heavy that they did not near the place until late in the day. But 
about nine o'clock in the evening they climbed to the top of a hill, 
whose further slope led down into the valley of Abbott's Creek. 
On this height the enemy's pickets were encountered and driven 
in. Further investigation led to the conclusion that the enemy 
was near, in full force. That night the men slept on their arms in 
this exposed position ; the rain had turned to sleet, and any degree 
of comfort was a thing they ceased to look for. Perceiving the 
necessity for reinforcements, Colonel Garfield sent word to Colonel 
Cranor to send forward all available men. Meanwhile, eiforts 
were made to learn Marshall's position, and arrange for battle. 
Our old friend John Jordan visited the hostile camp in the mealy 
clothes of a rebel miller, who had been captured, and returned 
with some very valuable information. Morning dawned, and the 
little Federal army proceeded cautiously down into the valley, then 
over the hills again, until, a mile beyond, they were ready to 
descend into the valley of Middle Creek, and charge against the 
enemy on the opposite heights. Garfield's plan was to avoid a 
general engagement, until about the time for his reinforcements to 
appear, because otherwise it was plainly suicidal to attack such a 



A SOLDIER OF THE UNION.— FIGHT AT MIDDLE CEEEK. 103 

laro-e force. On this plan skirmishing continued from eight till 
one o'clock, the only result being a better knowledge of the situa- 
tion. Now it was high time to begin in earnest. In the center 
of the strip of meadow-land, which stretched between Middle 
Creek and the opposite hills, was a high point of ground, crowned 
by a little log church and a small graveyard. The first movement 
would be to occupy that place, in order to have a base of operations 
on that side. The rebel cavalry and artillery were each in posi- 
tion to control the church. But the guns were badly trained, and 
missed their mark; the cavalry made some show, but, for some 
reason, retired without much fighting. 

Keeping a reserve here, a portion of the brave eleven hundred 
were now to strike a decisive blow ; but the enemy's infantry was 
hidden, and they did not know just how to proceed. On the south 
side of Middle Creek, to the right of the place where the artillery 
was stationed, rose a high hill. Around it wound the creek, and 
following the creek ran a narrow, rocky road. The entire force of 
Marshall, except his reserve, was in fact hidden in the fastnesses 
of that irregular, forest-covered hill, and so placed as to command 
this road, by which it was expected that the Federal troops would 
approach. But "the best laid plans" sometimes go wrong. The 
Yankee was not to be entrapped. Suspecting some such situation, 
Garfield sent his escort of twelve men down the road; around the 
hill they clattered at a gallop, in full view of the enemy. The 
ruse worked well, and the sudden fire of several thousand mus- 
kets revealed the coveted secret. The riders returned safely, and 
then the battle began. Four hundred men of the Fortieth and 
Forty-second Ohio, under Major Pardee, quickly advanced up the 
hill in front, while two hundred of the Fourteenth Kentucky, under 
Lieutenant-Colonel Monroe, went down the road some distance and 
endeavored, by a flank movement, so to engage a portion of the 
rebels that not all of them could be turned against Pardee. The 
latter now charged up the hill under a heavy fire. They were in- 
ferior in numbers, but determined to reach the summit some way. 
So they broke ranks at the cry of " Every man to a tree," and 
faught after the Indian fashion. After all, the Union l)oys were 



104 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

not altogether at a disadvantage. Their opponents were raw 
troops, and after the manner of inexperienced men they aimed too 
high, while the Federals did much better execution. But Mar- 
shall meant business at this im2)ortant hour, and sent his reserve 
to swell the number. A charge was made down the hill. Now 
the boys in blue retreat ; but not far. Garfield goes in with his 
reserves. Captain Williams calls, "To the trees again, my boys;" 
they rally; the fight grows hotter and whistling death is in the 
air. The critical moment is here, and those poor fellows down be- 
low are about to be crushed. The exultant Confederates rush 
dow^n in swelling volume; the wolf is about to seize his prey. 

But now a faint, though cheerful shout rings across the narrow 
valley; then louder it grows while the echoes clatter back from 
hillside to hillside like the tumult of ten thousand voices. The 
Confederates above peer out through the branches and view the 
opposite road. Every face, just flushed with hopes of victory, now 
turns pale at the sight. The force from Paintville has come at last. 
The hard-pressed men of Pardee can see nothing, but they catch 
new inspiration from the sound. They answer back ; while to the 
thousand voices and the ten thousand echoes on the Union side, 
one Avord of reply is given from the rebel commander's mouth. 
And the word he utters is — Retreat. 

This ended the struggle. Lieutenant-Colonel Sheldon, with his 
seven hundred men, after a hard day's march of twenty miles, 
came down on the scene of action at a run, and found that their 
approach had saved the day. Garfield and his men were already 
occupying the hill-top, and a detachment was following the fleeing 
troops of the enemy. The policy adopted, however, was not to 
follow the enemy very far, as it was not known in how bad a con- 
dition they were. The Union loss in this battle was two killed 
and twenty-five wounded. The rebels left twenty-seven dead on 
the field, and had carried ofl* about thirty-five more. 

The captures were, twenty-five men, ten horses, and a quantity 
of army supplies. Toward midnight a bright light appeared in 
the sky in the direction Marshall had taken. It was the light of 
his blazing wagons and camp equipments, burned by his men to 



A SOLDIER OF THE UNJON.-THE FIGHT AT MIDDLE CEEEK. 105- 




Garfield diu\es Hi vpiirn^ Mmishul oit of Kfvtlck^ 



106 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

keep them from doing any body else any good, while they them- 
selves made their enforced visit to Virginia by way of Pound Gap. 
The field was won; and Buell's commission to Garfield had been 
faithfully* performed. 

On the following day Colonel Garfield addressed his victorious 
men as follows: 

^'Soldiers of the Eighteenth Brigade: 1 am proud of you all! In four 
weeks you have marched, some eighty and some a hundred miles, over 
almost impassable roads. One night in four you have slept, often in the 
storm, with only a wintry sky above your heads. You have marched in 
the face of a foe of more than double your number — led on by chiefs 
who have won a national renown under the Old Flag — intrenched in 
hills of his own choosing, and strengthened by all the appliances of mili- 
tary art. With no experience but the consciousness of your own man- 
hood, you have driven him from his strongholds, pursued his inglorious 
flight, and compelled him to meet you in battle. When forced to fight, 
he sought the shelter of rocks and hills. You drove him from his posi- 
tion, leaving scores of his bloody dead unburied. His artillery thun- 
dered against you, but you compelled him to flee by the light of his 
burning stores, and to leave even the banner of his rebellion behind him. 
I greet you as brave men. Our common country will not forget you. 
She will not forget the sacred dead who fell beside you, nor those of 
your comrades who won scars of honor on the field. 

"I have recalled you from the pursuit that you may regain vigor for 
still greater exertions. Let no one tarnish his well-earned honor by any 
act unworthy an American soldier. Remember your duties as American 
citizens, and sacredly respect the rights and property of those with whom 
you may come in contact. Let it not be said that good men dread the 
approach of an American army. 

" Officers and soldiers, your duty has been nobly done. For this I 
thank you." 

On this day, January 11th, the troops took ]>ossession of Pres- 
tonburg, and the remaining duties of the campaign were only the 
working out in detail of results already secured. As to the merits 
of the decisive little fight at Middle Creek, Garfield said at a later 
time : " It was a very rash and imprudent affair on my part. If 



A SOLDIER OF THE UNION.— A BRAVE DEED. 107 

I had been an officer of more experience, I probably should not 
have made the attack. As it was, having gone into the army with 
the notion that fighting was our business, I did n't knoAv any bet- 
ter." And Judge Clark, of the Forty -second Ohio, adds : "And dur- 
ing it all, Garfield was the soldiers' friend. Such was his affection 
for the men that he would divide his last rations with them, and 
nobody ever found any thing better at head-quarters than the 
rest got." 

Indeed, there was one occasion, I believe just after this engage- 
ment, when the Eighteenth Brigade owed to its brave commander 
its possession of any thing at all to eat. The roads had become 
impassable, rations were growing scarce, and the Big Sandy, on 
which they relied, Avas so high that nothing could be brought up 
to them ; at least the boatmen thought so. But our old acquaint- 
ance, the canal boy, still survived, in the shape of a gallant colo- 
nel, and with his admirer and former canal companion. Brown, 
Garfield boldly started down the raging stream in a skifp. Arriv- 
ing at Catlettsburg, he found a small steamer, the Smidy Valley, 
which he loaded with provisions, and ordered captain and crew to 
get up steam and take him back. They all refused, on the ground 
that such an attempt would end in fiiilure, and probably in loss of 
life. But they did not know their man. His orders were re- 
peated, and he went to the wheel himself It was a wild torrent 
to run against. The river was far out of its natural limits, rush- 
ing around the foot of a chain of hills at sharp curves. In some 
places it was over fifty feet deep, and where the opposite banks 
rose close together the half-undermined trees would lean inward, 
their interlocking branches making the passage beneath both dif- 
ficult and dangerous. But the undaunted leader pressed on, him- 
self at the wheel forty hours out of the forty-eight. Brown 
stood steadfastly at the bow, carrying a forked pole, with Avhich 
to ward off the big logs and trees which constantly threatened to 
.strike the boat and stave in the bottom. The most exciting in- 
cident of all occurred the second night. At a sharp turn the 
narrow and impetuous flood whirled round and round, a boiling 
whirlpool; and in spite of great care the boat turned sidewise, 



108 



LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 



and stuck fast in the muddy bank. Eepeated efforts to pry the 
boat off were unavailing, and at last a new plan was suggested. 
Colonel Garfield ordered the men to lower a small boat, carry a 




liiu ac lo--^, and j)ull 
the little steamer 
out of difficulty. 
Thev baid no liv- 
ing mortal could 
attempt that feat 
and not die. This 
was just what they 
had said about 
starting the steam- 
er from Catletts- 

burg, and the answer was similar. Our hero leaped into the 

vkiff himself, the faithful Brown following. 



GARFIF.T>r) B F.XI 



THK BTf? SAXDY. 



A SOLDIER OF THE UNION.— ON THE BIG SANDY. 109 

Sturdily and steadily they pulled away, and in half an hour 
were on terra firma once more. Line in hand, they walked up to 
a place opposite the Sandy Valley, fixed the rope to a rail, and 
standing at the other end with an intervening tree to give leverage, 
soon had the satisfaction of seeing, or rather in the darkness feel- 
ing, the steamer swing out again into the current. After this impos- 
sibility had been turned into history, there was no more doubting 
from the incredulous crew. They concluded that this man could 
do any thing, and henceforth helped him willingly. At the end 
of three days, amid prolonged and enthusiastic cheering from the 
half-starved waiting brigade, the Sandy Valley arrived at her des- 
tination, and James A. Garfield had finished one more of his 
great life's thousand deeds of heroism. 

Immediately after the battle of ]Middle Creek great consterna- 
tion seized the minds of that ignorant population which filled the 
valley of the Big Sandy. The flying rebels, the dead and the 
ddbris of a fugitive army, and wild stories of savage barbarities 
practiced by an inhuman Yankee soldiery, had been more than 
enough for their fortitude. They fled like frightened deer at the 
blast of a hunter's horn, and sought safety in mountain fast- 
nesses. It was therefore necessary by some means to gain their 
confidence, and for this purpose the following proclamation was 
issued from the Federal head-quarters: 

"Head-Quarters Eighteenth Brigade, *» 
" Paintville, Ky., .January 16, 1862. j 

"Citizens of the Sandy Valley: I have come among you to restore the 
honor of the Union, and to bring back the Old Banner which you all 
once loved, but which, by the machinations of evil men, and by mu- 
tual misunderstandings, has been dishonored among you. To those 
who are in arms against the Federal Government I offer only the alterna- 
tive of battle or unconditional surrender; but to those who have taken 
no part in this War, who are in no way aiding or abetting the enemies 
of the Union, even to those who hold sentiments adverse to the Union, 
but yet give no aid and comfort to its enemies, I offer the full protection 
of the Government, both in their persons and property. 

"Let those who have been seduced away from the love of their coun- 



110 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

try, to follow after and aid the destroyers of our peace, lay down their 
arms, return to their homes, bear true allegiance to the Federal Govern- 
ment, and they also shall enjoy like protection. The army of the Union 
wages no war of plunder, but comes to bring back the prosperity of 
peace. Let all peace-loving citizens who have fled from their homes 
return, and resume again the pursuits of peace and industry. If citi- 
zens have suffered from any outrages by the soldiers under my com- 
mand, I invite them to make known their complaints to me, and their 
wrongs shall be redressed, and the offenders punished. I expect the 
friends of the Union in this valley to banish from among them all pri- 
vate feuds, and to let a liberal-minded love of country direct their con- 
duct toward those who have been so sadly estranged and misguided. I 
hope that these days of turbulence may soon end, and the better days of 
the Republic may soon return. 

"[Signed], "James A. Gaefield, 

"Colonel Commanding Brigade." 

After the true character of the invaders became known, the 
natives were as familiar as they had been shy, and multitudes of 
them came into camp. From their reports, and from the indus- 
try of the small parties of cavalry which scoured the country in 
all directions, it was established beyond doubt that the rebel army 
had no more foot-hold in the State ; although sundry small par- 
ties still remained, endeavoring to secure recruits for the forces in 
Virginia, and destroying many things which could be of use to the 
Union soldiers. In order to be nearer the scene of these petty 
operations. Colonel Garfield moved his head-quarters to Piketon, 
thirty miles further up the river. From this point he effectually 
stopped all further depredations, except in one locality. And it 
Avas in removing this exception to their general supremacy that 
the Eighteenth Brigade performed its last notable exploit in East- 
ern Kentucky. 

The principal pathway between Virginia and South-Eastern 
Kentucky is by means of Pound Gap. This is a rugged pass in 
the Cumberland INIountains, through which Marshall had in the 
fall of 1861 made his loudly-heralded advance, and later his in- 
glorious retreat. Here one Major Thomas had made a stand, with 



A SOLDIER OF THE UNION.— CAPTURES POUND GAP. Ill 

about six hundred men. Log huts were built by them for shelter, 
the narrow entrance to their camp was well fortified, and for snug 
winter-quarters they could want nothing better. AYhen in need of 
provisions a small party would sally forth, dash down into the 
valleys, and return well laden with plunder. Garfield soon de- 
termined to break up this mountain nest ; and early in March was 
incited to immediate action by a report that Humphrey Marshall 
was making that place the starting point for a new expedition. 
He had issued orders for all available forces to be gathered there 
on the 15th of March, preparatory to the intended re-invasion of 
Kentucky. To frustrate this scheme, Garfield started for Pound 
Gap with six hundred infantry and a hundred cavalry. It was a 
march of forty-five miles from Piketon in a south-westerly direc- 
tion. Deep snows covered the ground, icy hillsides were hard to 
climb, and progress was difficult. On the evening of the second 
day, however, they reached the foot of the ascent w^hich led up to 
the object for which they had come. Here they stopped until 
morning, meanwhile endeavoring to discover the number and con- 
dition of the mountain paths. The information obtained was 
meager, but sufficient to help form a plan of attack. One main 
path led directly up to the Gap. When morning came, Garfield 
sent his cavalry straight up in this direction, to occupy the enemy's 
attention, while with the infantry he was climbing the mountains 
and endeavoring to surprise them in the rear. After a long and 
perilous scramble, they reached a point within a quarter of a mile 
of the rebel camp. They were first apprized of their nearness to 
it by the sight of a picket, who fired on them and hastened to 
give the alarm. But the eager troops were close after him, and the 
panic-stricken marauders vanished hastily without a struggle, and 
were chased by the Union cavalry far into Virginia. 

After resting a day and night in these luxurious quarters, the huts 
were burned, the fortifications destroyed, and in less than five days 
from the start, the successful Colonel was back again in Piketon. 

This was the end of Garfield's campaign in eastern Kentucky. 
ThcTe was no more fighting to be done ; and after a few days he 
was called into another field of action. 



112 LTFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

When Colonel Garfield's official report of the battle of Middle 
Creek reached Louisville, General Buell replied by the following, 
which tells the story of his delight at the result : 

" Head-Quarters Department of the Ohio, 
Louisville, Ky., January 20th, 1862. 

"General Orders, No. 40. 

" The General Commanding takes occasion to thank Colonel Garfield 
and his troops for their successful campaign against the rebel force un- 
der General Marshall, on the Big Sandy, and their gallant conduct in 
battle. They have overcome formidable diflSculties in the character of 
the country, the condition of the roads, and the inclemency of the season; 
and, without artillery, have in several engagements, terminating with the 
battle on Middle Creek on the 10th inst., driven the enemy from his in- 
trenched positions, and forced him back into the mountains with the 
loss of a large amount of baggage and stores, and many of his men killed 
or captured. 

" These services have called into action the highest qualities of a sol- 
dier — fortitude, perseverance, courage. 

" By command of General Buell. "James B. Fry, 

"A. A. G., ChiefofStaflT." 

But this was not the only reward. The news went on to Wash- 
ington, and in a few days Garfield received his commission as a 
Brigadier-General, dated back to January 10th. 

The defeat of Marshall was conspicuous on account of its place 
and time. Since the defeat of the Union army at Bull Bun, in July 
of the preceding year, no important victory had been gained. The 
confidence of the North in its military leaders had begun to waver. 
General McClellan had turned himself and his army into a gigan- 
tic encampment and patriots were getting discouraged. No wonder 
that Lincoln and Buell were grateful for a man wdio was willing to 
wade through difficulties, and disturb the stagnant jaool of listless 
war! 

On the night of January 10th, an interview occurred between the 
President and several persons, one of whom. General McDowell, 
has preserved the knowledge of what occurred in a memorandum 
made at the time. He says : 



A SOLDIER OF THE UNION.— KENTUCKY CAMPAIGN. 113 

" Tlie Pre.sident was greatly di.'^turbed at the state of affairs. Spoke 
of the exhau.sted condition of tlie treasury ; of the loss of public credit; 
of the Jacobinism of Congress; of the delicate condition of our foieign 
relations ; of the bad news he had received from the West, pai'ticularly 
as "contained in a letter from General Halleek on the state of ati'airs in 
Missouri ; of the want of cooperation between Generals Halleek and 
Buell; but, more than all, the sickness of General McClellaii. The 
President said he was in great distress ; and, as he had been to General 
McClellan's house, and the General did not ask to see him, and as he must 
talk to somebody, he had sent for General Franklin and myself to obtain 
our opinion as to the possibility of soon commencing active operations 
with the Army of the Potomac. To use his own expression, if some- 
thing was not soon done, tiie bottom \vould be out of tlie whole atlair ; 
and if General jNIcClellan did not want to use the army, he would like to 
horrow it, provided he could see how it could be made to do something." 

This shows how necessary some decisive action now was to the 
safety of the Union. And to Garfield belonged the honor of ush- 
ering in an era of glorious successes. 

On the 19th of January, General Thomas defeated Zollicoffer'.s 
army, killed its general, and chased the remnants into Tennessee. 
This gave us Kentucky, and completed the break in the extreme 
right wing of Johnston's Confederate army. Just after this came 
Grant's successful move on the left wing of that army. Proceed- 
ing rapidly up the Tennessee, he took Fort Henry, then crossed 
over to the Cumberland, and, on February 16th, captured Fort 
Douelson. Other actions followed in quick succession. The South, 
fallen into false security during our long inactivity, was coni])letely 
astonished. The North, thoroughly aroused, believed in itself 
again ; and, with exultant tread, our armies began to march rapidly 
into the enemy's country. 

Colonel Garfield's career in the Sandy Valley was not th^ cause 
of all these good things. The first faint light which warns a 
watcher of the dawn of day, is not the cause of day. I)nt that 
early light is looked for none the less eagerly. Mitidle Cr^'fk Mas 
greeted by a Nation Avith just such sentiments. 

Historians of the Civil War will not waste much time ii' con- 



114 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

sidering this Kentucky campaign. Its range Avas too small; the 
student's attention is naturally drawn to the more striking fortunes 
of the greater armies of the Republic. But, as we have seen, the 
intrinsic merits of Colonel Garfield's work here were such as forced 
it upon the attention of his official superiors. As we have also seen, 
this campaign occurred at a time when small advantages could be 
appreciated, because no great ones were being secured. And the 
hand of Time, which obliterates campaigns, and cffiiccs kingdoms, 
and sinks continents out of sight, will never quite neglect to keep 
a torch lighted here, until the starry light of all our ti-iumphs shall 
o-o out in the darkness together. 



HZRO AJsD GE:NERAL.— AT PITTSBURG LANDING. 114 



CHAPTER V. 

HERO AND GENERAL. 

iTark to that roar whose swift and deafening |-)ealg 
In countless echoes tliroiigh the mountains ring, 
Startling pale Midnight on her starry throne I 
Now swells tlie interniingiing din — the jar, 
Frequent and frightful, of the bursting bomb, 
The falling beam, the shriek, the groan, the shout, 
The ceaseless clangor, and the rush of men! — Shdley. 

ON the 28d of March, 18G2, orders reached General Garfield, 
ill Eastern Kentucky, to report at once, with his command, 
to General Buell at Louisville. It had been determined to con- 
centrate the Army of the Ohio under Buell, move southward to 
Savannah, Tennessee, there eifect a junction with the Army of 
the Tennessee, which, under General Grant, was on its way up 
the Tennessee River, after the victories at Forts Donelson and 
Henry, and, with the united force, move forward to Corintfij^ 
Mississippi. Garfield ceased, from that time, to be a commander 
of an independent force, and became merged, with others of his 
rank, in the great Army of the Ohio. He proceeded to Louis- 
ville with all possible dispatch. But Buell was already far on 
the road to Savannah. Finding orders, lie at once hurried 
southward, and overtook Buell at Columbia, where the army 
had to construct a bridge over Duck River. The rebels had 
burned the old bridge; and, at that stage of the war, pontoon 
bridges were not to be had. Garfield was at once assigned to 
the command of the Twentieth Brigade, of General Thomas J. 
Wood's division. During this delay at Duck River, General 
Nelson, hearing that Grant had already reached Savannah, asked 
permission of Buell to let his division ford or swim the river and 
hurry on to Grant. As there was no known reason for hurrying 
to Grant, who sent word that he was in no danger of attack, the 



Uo LIFE OF J A MIS A. GAEFIELD. 

pernii.ssion was coklly given. But it was this impatience of Nel- 
sun which saved Grant's army at Shiloh. With Nelson's division a 
day in advance, the remainder of the aimy followed at intervals — • 
with Crittenden's division second, McCook's third, then Wood's — 
to which Garfield belonged — and last Thomas's. It had been in- 
tended to halt at Waynesboro for a day's rest, but the impetuous 
Nelson was beyond the toAvn before he had heard of it, and his 
>5pced had communicated itself to the succeeding divisions. In 
this way Nelson reached Savannah on the 5tii of April. Grant's 
army was at Pittsburg Landing, ten miles up the river. The 
world knows of the unexpected and terrific battle, beginning on 
the Gth and lasting two days. Nelson reached Grant at 5 p. m. of 
the first day's fight, Crittenden during the night, and McCook 
about 9 A. M. of the next day. These reinforcements alone saved 
Grant's army from destruction. Wood, impeded by the baggage 
trains abandoned in the road by the preceding divisions, who were 
straining every nerve to reach Grant in time, only reached the 
battle-field as the fighting closed. Garfield's brigade and some 
other troops were sent in pursuit of the flying enemy; but their 
great fatigue from continuous marching, and the darkness of the 
night, soon recalled the pursuit. On the following morn'ng, Gar- 
field's brigade took part in a severe fight with the enemy's cavalry, 
but it was only a demonstration to cover retreat. 

Ilallcck, Commander-in-Chief, reached Pittsburg Landing April 
11th, and began a remarkably slow advance upon Corinth, the ob- 
jective point of the campaign. The army was required to con- 
struct parallels of fortification to cover each day's advance ; and, 
in this way, it took six weeks to march the thirty miles which lay 
between the army and Corinth. While lying before Corinth, as 
throughout his career in the army, Garfield gratified, as m.uch as 
possible, his love of literature. He had with him several small 
volumes of the classics, which he read every day. He rather pre- 
ferred Horace, as being " the most philosophic of the pagans." 

During this time an incident occurred which showed well the 
cliaracter of Garfield. One day a Southern ruffian, a human blood- 
hound, came riding into camp, demanding that the soldiers hunt 



HEEO AND GEXERAL.-SIEGE OF CORINTH. 117 

and deliver to him a wretched fugitive slave who had preceded 
liim. The poor negro, who was badly wounded from the blows 
of the bully's whip, had sought the blue-coats for protection, and 
had succeeded in concealing himself from his relentless pursuer 
among Garfield's command. The swearing braggart, being mis- 
led and foiled by the soldiers, who not only sympathized with the 
slave, but enjoyed the swaggerer's wrath, at length demanded to 
be shown to the head-quarters of the division commander. The 
latter, after hearing the complaii^t, wrote an order to Garfield to 
require his men to hunt out and surrender the trembling vaga- 
bond. Garfield took the order from the aid, read it, quietly re- 
folded it, and indorsed on it the following reply: 

"I respectfully, but positively, decline to allow ray command to search 
for, or deliver up, any fugitive slaves. I conceive that they are here for 
quite another purpose. The command is open, and no obstacle will be 
placed in the way of the search." 

It was a courageous act, but he had never known fear. A court- 
martial, with a swift sentence of death, was the remedy for refusals 
to obey orders. When told of his danger, he said: 

"The matter may as well be tested first as last. Right is right, and I 
do not propose to mince matters at all. My soldiers are here for far otlier 
purposes than hunting and returning fugitive slaves. My people on the 
Western Reserve of Ohio did not send my boys and myself down here 
to do that kind of business, and they will back me up in my action." 

But no court-martial was held. A short time afterwards the 
War Department issued a general order embodying the principle 
of Garfield's refusal; and from that time it was the rule in all the 
armies of the Republic that no soldier should hound a human being 
back to fetters. 

After the six weeks' preparation for the siege of Corinth, Halleck 
found that only the hull of the nut was left for him. The wily enemy 
had evacuated the place without a struggle. The vast Union army, 
which had been massed for this campaign, having no foe to oppose 
it, was resolved into its original elements. The Army of the Ohio, 
under Bucll, was ordered to East Tennessee, preparatory to an at- 



118 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

tack on Chattanooga. The advance to the cast, was along- the h'nc 
of the Memphis and Chattanooga Railroad. This road had to be 
almost entirely rebuilt, as the supplies for the army were to come 
along its line. The work of rebuilding was assigned to AYood's 
division, and Garfield's brigade laid down the musket to handle 
the spade and hammer. Here, Garfield's boyhood experience with 
tools was of incalculable value. If a culvert was to be built, his 
head planned a swift, but substantial way, to build it. If a bridge 
had been burned, his eye saw quickly how to shape the spans, and 
secure the braces. His mind was of the rare sort which combines 
speculative with practical powers. His spirit electrified his men, 
as it had the school at Hiram ; and, in the drudgery of the work, 
from which the inspiration of battle was wholly wanting, it was he 
who cheered and" encouraged their unwonted toil. The work, for 
the time, having been finished, Garfield's head-quarters were es- 
tablished at Huntsville, Alabama, perhaps the most beautiful town 
in America. But the exposures of army life, the tremendous ex- 
ertions put forth in rebuilding the railroad, and the fierce rays of 
the summer sun, in the unaccustomed climate, laid bold on his 
constitution, in which the old boyhood tendency to ague was all 
the time dormant; and in the latter part of July, 1862, he was 
attacked with malarial fever. In the rough surroundings of 
the camp, as he tossed on his feverish couch, his thoughts turned 
longingly to the young wife and child in that humble northern home. 
Procuring sick-leave, he started north about the first of August. 
The War Department had an eye upon Garfield, and determined 
to give his abilities free scope. Five divisions of Buell's army 
we have followed to Corinth, and thence, along the tedious march 
to Chattanooga. A sixth division had been sent on a separate ex- 
pedition to Northern Mississippi, and a seventh, under General 
Geo. W. Morgan, to occupy East Tennessee, and, in particular, Cum- 
berland Gap. In the early part of August, orders reached Garfield 
to proceed to Cumberland Gap and take command of the seventh 
division of the Army of the Oh'o, relieving General Morgan. But 
when the order reached Garfield, he was already on his w^ay north, 
fast held bv the maliirnant clutch of low fever. 



HERO AND GENERAL.-PORTER COURT-MARTIAL. 119 

While Garfield had been with the army before Corinth, and on 
the line of march toward Chattanooga, the general discipline was 
very loose. The army camp is the most demoralizing place in the 
world. The men lose all self-restraint, and lapse into ferocious 
and barbarous manners. The check for this is discipline; but the 
volunteer troops, in the early stages of the war, utterly scouted the 
idea of discipline. To render it effective, the Army of the Ohio 
had to be reduced to a basis of strict military order. Courts-mar- 
tial were frequent. Garfield's judicial mind and sound judgment, 
combined with the knowledge of discipline which his experience 
as a teacher had given him, caused him to be sought for eagerly, 
to conduct these courts-martial. He was idolized by his own men, 
but his ability in the drum-head courts spread his fame through- 
out the division. The trial of Colonel Turchin, for conduct unbe- 
coming an officer, was the one which attracted most attention. 

The report of the trial to the AYar Department, prepared by 
Garfield, had served to still further heighten the opinion of his 
abilities entertained there. Garfield had been at home, on his 
sick leave, about a month, and had begun to rally from the fever, 
when he received orders to report at Washington City as soon as 
his health would permit. Shortly after this he again bade fare- 
well to his girlish wife, and started to the Capital. The service for 
which he was required there, was none other than to sit on the 
memorable court-martial of Fitz-John Porter, the most important 
military trial of the war. The charges against Porter are well 
known. He was accused of having disobeyed five distinct orders 
to bring his command to the front in time to take part in the 
second battle of Bull Pun. The trial lasted nearly two months. 
Garfield was required to pass upon complicated questions, involv- 
ing the rules of war, the situation and surroundings o." Porter's 
command previous to the battle, the duties of subordinate com- 
manders, and the military possibilities of the situation. In such a 
trial, the common sense of a strong, but unprofessional mind, was 
more valuable than the technical training of a soldier. The ques- 
tion at issue was, Avhether Porter had kept his own opinions to 
himself and cheerfully obeyed his superior's orders, even if he did 



120 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

not approve them, or whctlier, through anger or jealousy, he had 
sulked in the rear, so as to insure the defeat whieh he proph- 
esied. Garfield threw all his powers into the investigation, and 
at last was eonvinced that Porter was guilty. Such was the ver- 
dict of the Court; such, the opinion of Presidents Lincoln and 
Grant, and such is likely to remain the opinion of posterity. 

During this trial, Garfield became a Marm friend of Major-Gen- 
eral Pluntcr, the presiding officer of the court, and in command of 
our forces in South Carolina. After the adjournment, Huntei 
made an application to Secretary Stanton to have Garfield assigned 
to the Army of South Carolina. The appointment was made. P; 
Avas gratifying to Garfield, because Hunter was one of the strong 
antislavery generals, who, at that time, were few enough. Gar- 
field, felt that the war, though being fought on the technical ques- 
tion of a State's right to secede, was really a war to destroy the 
hideous and bloody institution of slavery, and he wished to see it 
carried on with that avowed purpose. As he afterwards expressed ' 
it : " In the A'cry crisis of our fate, God brought us face to fac(! 
with the alarming truth, that we must lose our own freedom or. 
grant it to the slave." 

In the same address from which the above is taken, which w^as 
delivered before the war had actually closed, Garfield declared that 
slavery Avas dead, and the war had killed it. Said he : 

" We shall never know why slavery dies so hard in this Eepublie 
and in this hall till we know why sin has such longevity and Satan is 
innnortal. With marvelous tenacity of existence, it has ontlived thrj 
expectations of its friends and the hopes of its enemies. It has been 
declared here and elsewhere to be in all the several stages of niortnlity, 
wounded, rioribund, dead. The question has been raised, Avhether i^i 
was indeed dead, or only in a troubled sleep. I know of no better illuS' 
tration of its condition than is found in Sallust's admirable history of 
the great conspirator Catiline, who, when his final battle was fought 
and lost, his army broken and scattered, was found far in advance of 
his own troops, lying among the dead enemies of Rome, yet breathing a 
little, but exhibiting in liis countenance all that ferocity of spirit which 
had characterized his life. So, sir, this body of slavery lies before us 



HERO AND GENERAL.-CHIEF OF STAFF. 121 

among the dead enemies of the Republic, mortally wounded, impotent 
in its Hendi.sh wickedness, but with its old ferocity of look, bearing the 
unmistakable marks of its infernal origin." — House of Rejyresentaiives, 
jLQiaanj 13, 18(55. 

But in war it is always the unexpected which happens. Pend- 
ing Garfield's departure to Hunter's command, his old army — then 
merged with the Army of tlie Cumberland, under the command 
of General Rosecrans, who relieved Buell — had, on the last day 
of the year of 18G2, plunged into the battle of Stone River. 
During the day a cannon-ball took off the head of the beloved 
Garesche, chief of General Rosecrans's staff. The place was im- 
portant, and hard to fill. It required a man of high military 
ability to act as chief confidential adviser of the commanding 
general, both as to the 'general plan of a campaign, and the im- 
perious exigencies of battle. Rosecrans had relied much on Gar- 
esche, and, just when so much was expected of the Army of the 
Cumberland, the War Department feared the testy General might 
become unmanageable, and, though well versed in the practice of 
warfare, give way just at the crisis. The chief of staff also had 
to be a man of pleasant social qualities to fit him for the intimate 
relation. 

IMuch as the War Department at Washington thought of Rose- 
crans at this time, his violent temper and invincible obstinacy 
rendered it imperative that some one should be with him who 
would prevent an absolute rupture upon trifling grounds. But in 
addition to these things, the chief of staff had to be a man of 
faultless generosity and unselfishness; he had to be a man who 
would exert his own genius for another's glory; he had to be will- 
ing to see the plans of brilliant campaigns, which were the product 
of his own mind^ taken up and used by another; he had to be will- 
ing to see reports of victories, which were the results of his own 
military skill, sent to Washington over ih^ name of the command- 
ing general, in which his own name was never mentioned. He was 
to do the work and get no glory for it. All this he had to Jo 
cheerfully, and with a heart loyal to his superior. There must be 
no division of counsel, no lukewarm support, no heart-burnings 



122 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

at head-quarters. To the army and the world there was but one 
man — the general. In reality there were two men — the general 
and his chief of staff. 

A minister of state sometimes succeeds in erecting for himself a 
fame separate, and not merged in the splendor of his sovereign. 
Wolsey and llichelieu and Talleyrand all did so. But the chief 
of staff was to know no fame, no name for himself. His light 
was merged and lost in the corruscations of the man above him. 
To find a soldier who united the highest military ability with a 
genial nature, and who was willing himself to go utterly without 
glory, was a difficult task. In a moment Stanton fixed his eye 
on Garfield. AVithout warning, the commission to South Carolina 
was revoked. Garfield was ordered to report at once to General 
Rosecrans, wdiose head quarters were at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, 
as a result of the victory at Stone River. 

IlosGcrans has said that he was prejudiced against Garfield before 
his arrival. He had heard that he was a Campbellite preacher, 
and fund cf theological debate, and a school teacher. These three 
things were enough to spoil any man for llosecrans. So he gave 
Garfield a cool enough reception on the January morning when 
the latter presented himself at head quarters. llosecrans, of course, 
had the option of taking the mtin whom the Department had sent 
him, to be his confidential adviser or not. Garfield's appearance, 
to be sure, was not that of the pious fraud, or the religious wran- 
gler, or the precise pedagogue. In the book, Down in Tennessee, 
we find the following superb description of his appearance at this 
time, by one who saw him : 

"In a corner by the window, seated at a small pine desk — a sort of 
packin;,^-box, perched on a l()ng-]e<rged stool, and divided into pigeon- 
holes, with a turn-down lid — was a tall, deep-chested, siiiewy-built man, 
with regular, massive features, a fnll, clear blue eye, slightly tinged 
with gray, and a high, broad forehead, rising into a ridge over the eyes, 
as if it had been thrown up by a plow. There was something singularly 
engaging in his open, expressive face, and his whole appearance indi- 
cated, as the phrase goes, 'great I'eserve power.' His uniform, though 
cleanly brushed and sitting easily upon him, had a sort of dcmoci'atic 



HERO AND GENERAL.— AT HEAD-QUARTERS. 123 

air, and every tiling about him seemed to denote that he was 'a man of 
the people.' A rusty slouched hat, large enough to have fitted Daniel 
Webster, lay on the desk before him; but a glance at thnt was not 
needed to convince nie that his head held more than the commo:i share 
of lirains. Thoii<r!i he is yet young— not thirty-three — the reader has 
heard of him, and if he lives he will make his name long remembered 
in our history." 

After some conversation, Rosccrans conchidetl to go a little 
slow before he rejeeteil his services. He kept Garfield around 
head cjuarters for a day or two, quizzing him occasionally, and try- 
ing to make up his estimate of the man. This sort of dancing 
attendance for a position he did not Avant, would have galled a 
man of less ability and cheaper pride than Garfield ; but he had 
the patience of a planet. "" Roscy," as his soldiers called him, 
soon found himself liking this great whole-souled Ohioan, and, 
what was still more significant, he began to reverence the genius 
of the man. He was unable to .sink a plumb-line to the bottom 
of Garfield's mind. After each convor.sation, the depths of reserve 
power seemed deeper than before. Rosecrans decided within him- 
self to take him, if possible. Only one thing stood in the way. 
If Garfield preferred to go to the field, as he had himself ])ro])h- 
esied from his name (Guard-of-the-ficld) just before leaving col- 
lege in 1850, Rosecrans was not the man to chain him up at head- 
quarters. The choice was open to Garfield to take a division or 
accept th? position of chief of staflP. The latter had fifty times the 
res})onsibility, and no opportunity whatever for fame. But with- 
out a moment's struggle, Garfield quif^tly said: ''If you want my 
services as chief of staff, you can have them." 

The oj)inion in the army of the selection of General Garfield to 
succeed the lamented Garesche, may be gathered from a volume 
called: "Anuals of the Army of the Cumberland," ])ublished shortly 
after Garfield's appointment, and written by an officer in the army; 
'' With the selecJon of General Garfield, universal satisfaction is 
everywiiere expressed. Po.ssessed of .sound natural sense, an 
excellent judgment, a highly cultivated intellect, and the deserved 
reputation of a successful military leader, he is not only the 



124 LIFE OF JAMEvS A. GARFIELD. 

Mentor of the staff, but his opinions arc sought and his counsels 
heeded by many who are older, and not less distinguished than 
himself." 

An incident which occurred soon after his appointment, illus- 
trates well the aspect of his many-sided character, as presented to 
the common soldier. Civilians have little idea of the gulf which 
military discipline and etiquette places between the regular army 
officer and the private soldier. Never was a Russian czar more of 
a despot and autocrat than a West Point graduate. It seems to 
be an unavoidable outgrowth of the profession of arms and mili- 
tary discipline that the officer should be a sultan and the private 
a slave. One night, at Rosecrans's head quarters in Murfrces- 
boro, the officers' council lasted till the small hours of the 
morning. Tlie outer hall, into which the room used by the council 
opened, was occupied by a dozen orderly -sergeants, who were 
required to be there, ready for instant service all the time. As 
the hours advanced, and there was no indication of an adjourn- 
ment within, this outer council got sleepy, and selecting one of 
its number to keep watch, rolled itself up in various ragged army 
blankets and tumbled on the floor. It was not long till the air 
trembled with heavy blasts from the leaden trumpet of sleep. The 
unluckv fellow, who was left to guard, was envious enough of his 
sleeping comrades. Tilting his seat back against the wall, he sank 
into deep meditation upon the pleasures of sleep. A few minutes 
later, sundry sudden jerks of his head, from side to. side, told that 
he, too, had found surcease from sorroAV in sonorous slumber. Just 
at this unlucky moment the door opened, and General Garfield 
step])ed out into the dimly-lighted j)assage, on his way to his 
quarters. The sleeper's legs were stretched out far in front of 
him with lofty negligence; his arms hung by his side; his head, 
from which the cap was gone, hung down in an aUirming manner, 
as if he were making a ])r()f()und and attentive investigation oi' his 
boots. At this unlucky moment, Garfiehl stumbled over the ser- 
geant, and fell with his full weight upon tJie frightened orderly. 
INIilitary discipline required that Garfield should fire a volley of 
oaths at the poor fellow, supplemented by a heavy cannonade of 



HERO AND GEXERAL.-AN INCIDENT. 125 

kicks in tae enemy's rear, and the cutting down of his supplies to 
bread and water for a week. Orderlies at head-quarters knew this 
to be the plan of battle. General Garfield rose to his feet as 
quickly as possible, gave the unfortunate and trembling sergeant 
his assistance to rise, and after a kindly " excuse me. Sergeant, I 
did not sec you. I 'm afraid you did not find me very light,'^ 
passed on his way. It is easy to see why the common soldiers 
loved a chief of staff in whom the gentleman was stronger than 
the officer. 

During the tedious delay at Murfreesboro, the officers and 
men exercised their ingenuity in inventing games to })ass awav 
the time. Phil. Sheridan, out at his quarters in the i()rest sur- 
rounding the town, had invented a game which he called Dutch 
ten-pins. Out in front of his cabin, from the limb of a lofty tree, 
ivas suspended a rope. At the end was attached a cannon-ball, 
small enough to be easily grasped by the hand. Underneath the 
rope were set the ten-pins, with sufficient spaces between them for 
the ball to pass without hitting. At first the fun-lovii\g little 
General only tried to throw the ball between the pins without 
knocking any. But as his skill increased, he enlarged the o])por- 
tunity for it by making the game to consist not only in avoiding 
the pins on the throw, but in making the ball hit them on the 
return. Sheridan became very fond of the exercise, and in the 
three throws allowed each player for a game, he could bring down 
twenty pins out of the thirty possible. The reputation of the 
novel game and Sheridan's skill reached the commanding General's 
head-quarters. One day Rosecrans, Garfield, and a few brother 
officers, rode out to see " little Phil," as Sheridan was called, and 
take a hand in the game which had made for itself such a name. 
The guests were cordially received, and after a good many jokes 
and much bantering, Sheridan began the game. At the first throw 
the returning ball brought down six pins; at the second, seven; 
and the third the same number, making a score of twenty. Several 
tried with more or less success, but not approaching the host's 
score. When Rosecrans took the ball, the merry company laughed 
at his nervous way of handling it. After a lengthy aim, iic tlirew 



12G LIFE OF JAMES A. CxARFIELD. 

ami knockod down every pin by the throw. Again he tried it, ancH 
again the ball failed even to get through the wooden line. Sheridan 
nearly exploded with laughter. A third time he met with the same 
ill-luck, i'ailing to make a single tally. Then General Garfield 
stej)})ed forward, saying: ''It's nothing but mathematics. All you 
need is an eye and a hand." So saying, he carelessly threw the 
ball, safely clearing the pins on the forward swing, and bringing 
down seven on the return. Every body shouted ''Luck! luck I 
Try that again." The chief of staff laughed heartily, and with 
still greater indifference, tossed the ball, making eight; the third 
throw had a like result, scoring Garfield twenty-three, and giving 
him the game. It was no wonder that an officer said of him, 
" That man Garfield beats every thing. No matter what he does, 
he is the superior of his competitors, Avithout half trying." 

On the 25th of April, 1863, Garfield issued. a circular to the 
Army of the Cumberland, upon the barbarities and unspeakable 
outrages of the Southern prison-pens. The circular contained a 
verbatim statement by an escaped prisoner of his treatment by the 
rebels. After a few burning words. General Garfield concluded: 
" We can not believe that the justice of God will alloAv such a 
people to prosper. Lot every soldier know that death on the 
battle-field is preferable to a surrender followed by such outrages 
as their comrades have undergone." 

Every word of the circular was true. The time may come, 
when the South will be forgiven for fighting for principles which 
it believed to be right. The time may come when the sorrows of 
the Nortli and South will become alike the sorrows of each other, 
over the ruin wrought by human folly. The right hand of fellow- 
ship will be extended. The Southern people, as a people, may be 
relieved of the fearful charge of the assassination of Abraham Lin- 
coln, and posterity may come to look at it as the infernal offspring 
of a few hell-born spirits. The day is upon us when much of 
this is already true. But the men who directly or indirectly 
caused or countenanced the starvation, the torture, the poisoned 
and rotten food, the abandonment to loathsome disease, the crowd- 
ing of thousands of Union prisoners into stockades, opening only 



HERO AND GENERAL.— "A COPPERHEAD." 127 

heavenward, and all the other unparalleled atrocities of the South- 
ern prisons — atrocities that violated every rule of warfare ; atroci- 
ties, to find the equals of which the history of barbarous and 
savage nations, without the light of religion or the smile of civil- 
ization, will be ransacked in vain — shall be handed down to an 
eternity of infamy ! They shall take rank with the Caligulas, the 
Neros, the inquisitors, the historic monsters in human form, whose 
names and natures are the common dishonor and disgrace of 
mankind. 

About this time there appeared in Rosccrans's camp, with droop- 
ing feathers, but brazen flice, the thing which patriotism denomin- 
ated " a copperhead." He was a northern citizen by the name of 
Vallandigham from Garfield's own State, who had been ostra- 
cised by his neighbors for his treason, and compelled to leave the 
community of patriots to seek congenial company within the rebel 
lines. He was to have an escort to the enemy's camp. A squad 
waited outside to perform this touching task, under the cover of 
a flag of truce. Vallandigham, who had the mind, if not the 
heart, of a man, in forced jocularity dramatically spoke the lines 
from Romeo and Juliet — 

" Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day 
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops." 

Quick as thought Garfield completed the quotation — 
"I must begone and live, or stay and die." 

The joke was funny to every one but Vallandigham, but he 
was the only man in the room who laughed aloud. 

A little later President Hinsdale wrote to General Garfield about 
the treasonable views of some copperhead students at Hiram. 
Above all things Garfield detested a foe in the rear. He respected 
a man who avowed his principles on the crimsoned field, but a 
traitor, a coward, was to his candid nature despicable beyond lan- 
guage. His letter in reply is characteristic: 

" Head-Quarters Department of the Cumrerlanp, ) 
^lURFREESBORO, May 20, 1863. ] 

"Tell all those copperhead students for me that, were I there in charj^e 
of the school, I would not only dishonorably dismiss them from the 



128 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

school, but, if tliey remained in the place and persisted in their co-\vardly 
treason, I woidd apj^ly to General Burnside to enforce General Order Xo. 
38 in their cases. 

"If these young traitors are in earnest they should go to the Southern 
Confederacy, where they can receive full sympathy. Tell them all that 
1 will furnish them passes through our lines, where they can join A^allan, 
digluun and iheir other friends till such time as they can destroy us, and 
come back lionie as conquerors of their own people, or can learn wisdom 
and obedience. 

" I know this apparently is a small matter, but it is only apparently 
small. "We do not know what the developments of a month may bring 
forth, and, if such things be permitted at Hiram, they may anywhere. 
The rebels catch up all such fjicts as sweet morsels of comfort, and every 
such influence lengthens the war and adds to the bloodshed." 

It AA'as about the same time the above letter was written that a 
letter was brought to Rosecrans's head-quarters, detailing an exten- 
sive plan for a universal insurrection of the slaves throughout the 
South. The rising was to take place August 1st. The slaves 
were to arm themselves with whatever they could get, and their 
especial work was to cut off the supplies of the rebel forces. " An 
army is dependent on its belly," said Napoleon. To destroy, the 
bridges and railroads within the Confederacy would swiftly under- 
mine the rebel armies, whose rations and ammunition came along 
those routes. With the universal cooperation of the Union forces, 
it was thought the Rebellion might be crushed. To secure the 
cooperation of Rosecrans was the apparent object of the letter. 
General Garfield talked it over with his chief, and denounced the 
plan in the most unmeasured terms. He said that if the slaves 
wanted to revolt that was one thing. But for the Union army to 
violate the rules of warfare by encouraging and combining with a 
war upon non-combatants was not to be thought of. The colored 
people would have committed every excess upon the innocent 
women and children of the South. The unfortunate country would 
not only be overrun with war, but with riot. Rosecrans resolved 
to have noihing to do witti it. But Garfield still was not satisfied. 
The letter said that several commanders had already given their 



HERO AND GENERAL.— ORGANIZES ARMY POLICE. 129 

assent. . He sent the letter to President Linicolii witli a statement 
of the results which would follow such irregular warfare. A letter 
of Garfield, written on the sulyect, says ; 

" I am clearly of opinion that the negro project is in every way had, and 
should be repudiated, and, if possible, thwarted. If the slaves should, 
of theii- own accord, rise and assert their original right to themselves, and 
cut their way through rebeldom, that is their own affair; but the Gov- 
ernment could have no complicity with it without outraging the sense of 
justice of the civilized world. We would ci-eate great sympathy for the- 
rebels abroad, and Gofl knows they have too much already." 

Lincoln gave the matter his attention, and the slave revolt 
never took place in any magnitude. It was an ambitious scheme 
on paper, and yet was not utterly impracticable. It was a thing 
to be crushed in its infancy, and Garfield's action was the proper 
way to do it. 

While Garfield was with Rosecrans, he was addressed by some 
prominent Northerners upon the subject of running Rosecrans for 
the Presidency, Greeley and many leading Reptiblicans were dis- 
satisfied with Lincoln in 1862-'63, and wanted to work up another 
candidate for the campaign of '64. Attracted by Rosecrans's suc- 
cesses, they put the plan on foot by opening communication with 
Garfield, in whom they had great confidence, upon the feasibility 
of defeating Mr. Lincoln in the convention, with Rosecrans. Gar- 
field, however, put his foot on the whole ambitious scheme. He 
said that no man on earth could equal Lincoln in that trying hour. 
To take Rosecrans wa.s to destroy both a wonderful President and 
an excellent soldier. So effectually did he smother the plan, that 
it is said Rosecrans never heard a whisper of it. 

A most important work of General Garfield, as chief of sfaff, 
was his attack upon the corrupting vice of smuggling, and his de- 
fense of the army police. When an army is in an active cam- 
paign, marching, fighting, and fortifying, there is but little corrui)- 
tion dcvelo])ed. But in a large volunteer army, wdtli its necessarily 
lax discipline when lying idle for a long time, its quarters ixcMiiu- 
infested with all the smaller vices. The men, ai*e of every s ut : 



130 LIFE OF JAMES A. ClAKFIELD. 

and, as soon as they arc idle, tlicir heads px't full of mischief. 
The Army of the Cumberland, during its hnig inactivity at Mur- 
freesboro, soon began to suffer. The citizens ^-erc liostile, and 
had but two objects — one to serve the Confederacy, the other to 
make money for themselves. They thus all became s])ies and 
smugglers. Smuggling Mas the great army vice. The profits of 
cotton, smuggled contraband through the Union lines to the North, 
and of medicines, arms, leather, M'hisky, and a thousand Xorth- 
ern manufactures, through to the South, Avere simply incalculable. 
Bribery Avas the most eflcctive, but not the only May of smuggling 
articles through the lines. The Southern -women, famous the world 
over for their beauty and their captivating and passionate manners, 
vould entangle the officers in their meshes in order to extort 
favors. To break up this smuggling, and get fresh information 
of any plots or pitfalls for the Union army, a system of army 
police had been organized at Nashville and Murfreesboro. This 
was in a fair state of efficiency when Garfield was aj^pointcd chief 
of staff. To improve it and make its work more available. Gen- 
eral Garfield founded a bureau of military information, with Gen- 
eral D. G. Swaim for its head. For efficiency, it was never again 
equaled or approached during the war. Shortly afler the estab- 
lishment of this bureau of information, a determined attack was 
made on the whole institution. " It marshaled its friends and 
enemies in almost regimental numbers. Even in the army it has 
been violently assailed, not only by the vicious in the ranks, but 
by oflRcers whose evil deeds were not ])ast finding out." The 
accusations which were laid before Garfield were always investi- 
gated immediately, and always to the vindication of the police 
department. A special officer was at last detailed to investigate 
the entire department. His report of the wonderful achicn'cments 
of the army police is monumental. Garfield was inexorable. 
Every officer guilty of smuggling had to come down, no matter 
how prominent he was. The chief of staff set his face like 
brass against the corruptions. The opportunities open to him for 
wealth were immense. All that was necessary fi)r him to do was 
to wink at the smuggling. He had absolute power in the matter. 



IIEKO AND CJEXEEAL.— AT MUEFKEESBORO. 131 

r>ut lie fought the evil to its grave. He broke up stealing among 
the men, lie cstabli.slied a system of rcguhxr reports from spies 
on the cneniy, 1 1 is police furnished him with the political status 
of every family in that section of the State. He knew just the 
temper of Bragg's troops, and had a fair idea of their number. 
He knew just what corn miis selling at 'n\ the enemy's lines. 
Located in a hostile country, honeycombed with a system of rebel 
spies, he outspicd the enemy, putting spies to watch its spies. In 
every public capacity, civil or military, virtue is more rare and 
more necessary than genius. General Garfield's incorruptible 
character alone saved the army police from destruction, and re- 
stored the Army of the Cumberland to order and honesty. He 
had, long before entering the army, shown wonderful ability for 
using assistants to accumulate facts for him. The police institu- 
tion was an outcropping of the same thing. No commander dur- 
ing the war had more exact and detailed information of the enemy 
than Garfield had at this time. 

When General Garfield reached the Army of the Cumberland, 
it was in a shattered and exhausted condition. It had no cavalry, 
the arms were inferior, and the terrible pounding at Stone River 
had greatly weakened it. General Rosecraus insisted on its recu- 
peration and reinforcement before making another advance. The 
Department at Washington and Halleck, Commander-in-chief of 
the Union forces, were of the opinion that an advance should be 
made. Rosccrans, though possessing some high military skill, was 
sensitive, headsti'ong, absorbed in details, and violent of speech. 
He demanded cavalry, horses, arms, equipments. Dispatch after 
dispatch came insisting on an advance. Sharper and sharper 
became the replies, Garfield undertook to soften the venomous 
correspondence. Angry messages were sometimes suppressed alto- 
gether. But ho could not control the wrathy commander. Rose- 
crans held a different, and, as it turned out, an erroneous theory 
of the best military policy. At first, Garfield's views harmonized 
with those of his superior; but, as the month of April passed 
without movement, as his secret service informed him of the con- 
dition and situation of the enemy, he joined his own urgent ad- 



132 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

vice to that of tlic Department for an advance. Rosecrans Avas 
immovable. The army of (jO,OUO men had been in quarters at 
Murfrcesboro since January Gth without striking a blow at the 
rebellion. The month of May, with its opening flowers, its fra- 
orant breezes and blue skies, came and went without a move. 
General Garfield was sick at heart, but he could do nothing. The 
more liosccrans was talked to, the more obstinate he became. 
Garfield had certain information that Bragg's army had been 
.divided by sending reinforcements to Richmond, but nobody be- 
lieved it. Besides, Rosecrans was supported in his position by all 
the generals of his army. Two of these were incompetent — Crit- 
tenden and McCook. They had behaved shamefully at Stone 
River. General Garfield urged their removal, and the substitu- 
tion of McDowell and Buell. Rosecrans admitted their ineffi- 
ciency, but said he hated to injure " two such good fellows." He 
kept them till the " good fellows " injured him. 

At last, on the 8th of June, 1S63, Rosecrans, yielding some- 
what ta the pressure without, and still more to the persuasion of 
his chief of staff, laid the situation before the seventeen corps, 
division and cavalry generals of hLs army, and requested a writ- 
ten opinion from each one upon the advisability of an advance. 
It is to be remembered tliat among the seventeen generals were 
TJiomas, Sheridan, Xegley, Jeff. C. Davis^ Hazen and Gmnr/er. 
Each of these studied the situation, and presented a written in- 
dividual opinion. TT7^/t astonishing unanimity, every one of the 
seventeen opposed an advance. Rosecrans read the opinions. They 
coincided with his own. But there was a man of genius at hi.^ 
side. Garfield, his confidential adviser^ looked at the opinions of 
tlio generals in utter dismay. He saw that a crisis had arrived, 
Tlio Department of War peremptorily denumded "an advance ; and 
to let the vast army, with its then excellent equipment, lie idle 
longer, meant not only the speedy removal of Rosec/ans from 
command, but the greatest danger to the Union cause. He asked 
Rosecrans time to prepare a Avritton reply to the opinions opposing 
an advance. Permission was given, though Rosecrans told him it 
would be wasted work. Collecting all liLs powers, he bcgau his 



IIEKO AND GEXERAL.-UEGES AX ADVAX'CE. 133 

task. Four clavs and n ights it occupied him. At the eud of that timOj 
oil June r2th, he presented to Rosecrans the ablest opinion known 
to have been given to a commanding officer by iiis chief of staif dur- 
ing the entire war. The paper began with a statement of the ques- 
tions to be discussed. Xext it contained, in tabulated form, the opin- 
ions of the generals upon each question. Then followed a swift 
summary of the reasons presented in the seventeen opinions against 
the advance. Then began the answer. He presented an elaborate 
estimate of the strength of Bragg's army, probably far more accurate 
and com^jlete than the rebel general had himself. It was made up 
from the official report of Bragg after the battle of Stone River, 
from fads obtained from prisoners, deserters, refugees, rebel news- 
papers, and, above all, from the reports of his army police. The 
argument showed a perfect knowledge of the rules of organization 
of the Confederate army. The mass of proofs accompanying the 
opinion was overwhelming. Then followed a summary and anal- 
ysis of the Army of the Cumberland. Summing up the relative 
strength of the two armies, he says, after leaving a strong garri- 
son force at Murfreesboro, " there will be left sixty-five thousand 
one hundred and thirty-seven bayonets and sabers to throw against 
Bragg's forty-one thousand six hundred and eighty." 
He concludes with the following general observations: 



Stone River, or is likeh' to be again for the present, while our army has 
reached its maxiiiumi strength, and we have no right to expect reinforce- 
ments for several months, if at all. 

" 2. Whatever be the result at Vicksburg, the determination of its fate 
will give large reinforcements to Bragg. If Grant is successful, his army 
wiU require many weeks to recover from the shock and strain of his late 
campaign, while Johnston will send back to Bragg a force sufficient to 
insure the safety of Temipssee. If Grant fails, the ^ame result will in- 
evitably follow, so far as Bragg's army is concerned. 

" 3. Xo man can predict with certainty the result of any battle, how- 
ever great the disparity in numbers. Such results are in the hands of 
God. But, viewing the question in the light of human calculation, I 
refuse to entertain a doubt that this army, which in January last f^?- 



134 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAUFIELD. 

featcd Bragg's superior nuinbors, can overwliolm Lis present greatly 
inferior forces. 

" 4. The most unfavorable course for us lliat Brngg eoukl take avouIJ 
he to fall back withovit giving us battle; but tlii.^ would be verj- disas- 
trous to liim. B^'i^^ides, the loss of materiel of \var and the abandonment 
of tlie rich and abundant harvest now nearly ripe in ]Middle Tennessee, 
he would Ic^e heavily by desertion. It is well known that a widespread 
dissatis! action exists among his Kentucky and TenDe>see troops. They 
are alrc.dy deserting in large numbers. A retreat would greatly in- 
ciease both the desu-e and the opjxirtunity for desertion^ and would very 
materially reduce his physical and moral strength. While it would 
lengthen our communications, it would give as possession of McMinnville, 
and enable us to threaten Chattanooga and East Tennessee ; and it would 
not be unreasonable to expect an early occupation of the former place. 

"5. But the chances are more than even that a sudden and rapid move- 
ment would compel a general engagement, and the defeat of Bragg would 
be in the highest degree disastrous to the rebellion. 

"6. The turbulent aspect of politics in the loyal States renders a de- 
cisive blow against the enemy at this time of the highest importance to 
the success of the Government at the polls, and in the enforcement of the 
conscription act. 

*' 7. The Government and the War Department believe that this army 
ought to move upon the enemy. The army desires it, and the country 
is anxiously hoping for it. 

" 8. Our true objective point is the rebel army, whose last reserves 
are substantially in the field; and an effective blow will crush the sliell, 
and soon be followc<l by the collapse of the rebel government. 

" 9. You have, in my judgment, wisely delayed a general movement 
hitherto, till your army could be massed and your cavalry could be 
mounted. Your mobile force can now be concentrated in twenty-four 
hours; and your cavalry, if not equal in numerical strength to that of 
the enemy, is greatly superior in efficiency. For these reasons I believe 
an immediate advance of all our available forces is advi.-able, and, under 
the providence of God, Avill l)e successfid." 

Rosocrans read the opinion, examined the j^roofs, and was con- 
vJnocd. " Garfield," said he, " you have captured me, but Iioav 
ftliall tlie advance be made?" 

Tiic situation was about as follows: Tmacfine an isosceles triangle, 



IIEnO AND GENEKAL.— POSITION OF BRA(;G'S AR^MY. 135 

with its apex to the north at Murfreesboro. Here the Army of 
the Cainberhmd ^vas situated. The base of the triangle was about 
fifty miles long, and constituted the enemy's front, with its right 
terminating at McMinnville, the south-east corner of the triangle, 
and its left at Columbia, the south-west corner of the figure. At 
the middle of the base was the village of Wartrace; and almost 
due west of Wartrace, but a little below the base of the triangle, 
was Shelbyville, where the enemy's center was situated, behind 
massive fortifications. Between Shelbyville and Wartrace was 
massed the enemy's infantry, the extreme wings being composed 
of cavalry. At a little distance north of the enemy's front, and 
forming the base of the triangle, was a " range of hills, rough and 
rocky, through whose depressions, called gaps, the main roads to 
the South passed. These gaps were held by strong detachments 
Avith heavy columns within supporting distance." -Any one can 
see the enormous strength of the enemy's position for defense. But 
it had still other sources of strength. Behind the enemy's left and 
center was Duck River, a deep torrent, with tremendous banks. 
If they were pressed in front, the rebel army could fall back south 
of the river, burn the bridges, and gain ample time for retreat to 
the lofty range of the Cumberland ISIountains, which were only a 
day's march to the rear. On a direct line with Murfreesboro and 
Wartrace, and at the same distance south of Wartrace, as Mur- 
freesboro was north of it, was Tullahoma, the depot of the enemy's 
supplies, and hence the key to the situation. Posted in this almost 
impregnable situation, Bragg's army was the master of Central Ten- 
nessee. It is evident that the campaign, which Garfield so power- 
fully urged, was a great undertaking. The narrow mountain gaps 
heavily fortified; behind the range of hills the great body of the 
rebel army intrenched in heavy fortifications ; behind them the 
natural defense of Duck River, and still to the south, the Cumber- 
land Mountains, formed an aggregation of obstacles almost insu- 
perable. The plan of the campaign which followed must, in military 
history, be accredited to Rosecrans, because he was the General in 
command; but biography cares not for military custom, and names 
its author and originator the chief of staff. The reason Garfield 



io6 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

urged the advance, was that he had a plan, the merits of which we 
will examine hereafter, by Avhieh he was convinced it might be 
.succcssftilly made. 

There were substantiaily three ways by which the Union army 
might advance: one lay along the west side of the triangle to 
Columbia, there attacking the enemy's left wing; another to march 
directly south to Shelbyville, and fall upon the enemy's center; a 
third, to advance by two roads, cutting the base of the triangle 
Tibout midway between the enemy's center and extreme right. A 
f )urtli route was possible, along the eastern side of the triangle to 
McMinnville; but if the enemy's right was to be attacked, the 
^lanchester roads were every way preferable, as being more direct. 
General Garfield's selection was the third route. His plan was to 
throw a heavy force forward on the road to Shelbyville, as if in- 
tending to attack the rebel center. Then, under cover of this feint, 
swiftly throw the bulk of the army upon the enemy's right, turn 
the flank, cross Duck River, and march swiftly to the enemy's 
rear, threatening his supplies, thus compelling Bragg to fall back 
from his tremendous stronghold at Shelbyville, and either give 
battle in the open country or abandon the entire region. 

On the 23d of June the movement was begun by the advance of 
General Granger's division toward Shelbyville. At the same time 
a demonstration was made toward the enemy's left, to create the 
belief that feints were being made to distract the enemy's atten- 
tion from what would be supposed the main attack on Shelbyville. 
Meanwhile the bulk of the army was advanced along the two roads 
leading to the middle of the enemy's right — the cast road leading 
through Liberty Gap, and the west through Hoover's Gap, a defile 
three miles long. On the twenty-fourth a terrible rain began, 
continuing day and night, for over a week. It rendered the 
wretched roads almost impassable, and terribly increased the diffi- 
culties of the army. The artillery sunk hub-deep in the almost 
bottomless mire. Great teams of twelve and fourteen powerful 
horses "stalled" with small field-pieces. Never a minute did the 
rain let up. The men's clothing Avas so drenched that it was not 
dry for two weeks. The army wagons, hundreds in number, 



HERO AND GENERAL.— THE TULLAHOMA CAMPAIGN. 137 

carryini!: the precious bacon aud htird-tack, stuck fast on the roads. 
So foarful was the mire that on -one day the army only advanced 
a mile and a-half. 

Eat the advance M-as pushed as rapidly as possible. Liberty 
Gap and Hoover's were both captured. The demonstrations on 
the enemy's left and center were kept up with, great vigor. Bragg/ 
was wholly deceived by the numerous points of attack. On the' 
twenty-seventh the entire army was concentrated, and passed 
rapidly through Hoover's Gap, and on to iNIanchester. AVhilc the 
army was concentrating tit INIanchester, General Thomas, on the 
twenty-eighth, began the final move in the game — the advance 
upon TuUahoma. Bragg had retreated from Shelbyville, owing to 
the danger which threatened his supplies. On the twenty-ninth 
he evacuated Twllahoma for the same reason. An attempt was 
made to intercept his retreat and force him to battle. But the 
terrible condition of the roads and rivers rendered the effort futile. 
Bragg crossed the Cumberland Mountains, and Central Tennessee 
was once more in the hands of the Union army. Had the 
Tullahonia campaign been begun a week earlier, before the rains 
set in, Bragg's army would inevitably have been destroyed. The 
rebel army, of 50,000 veterans, had been driven from a natural 
stronghold of the most formidable character; and had lost all the 
fruits of a year's victories by a single campaign of nine days, con- 
ducted in one of the most extraordinary rains ever known in 
Tennessee. There were 1,700 rebel prisoners taken, se^'eral parks 
of artillery, and an enormous amount of Confederate army stores 
at Tidlahoma. This campaign and its victory was not the result of 
battle, but of pure strategy, confessedly the highest art in war. 

As to whom the -credit of the plan of the campaign belonged, 
there could be no question. As we have shown, it is impossible 
to separate the double star of Garfield and Rosecrans bv military 
etiquette. But aside from the facts that the campaign was begun 
as a result of Garfield's argument, in the face of unanimous oppo- 
sition, the following fiict is conclusive as to whom belongs the 
glory. On the morning of the twenly-third, when the movement 
was begun. General Thomas lu Crittenden, one of the corps 



138 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

coramandcrs, went to licaJ-quarters and said to General Garfield : 
" It U understood, sir, bi/ the goierai ojicers of the nrmy that this 
morcvind is your irork. 1 wish you to understaiid that it is a rash 
and fatal more, for icliich you n-ill be held responsible." 

The lips of an enemy arc now made to bear unwilling testimony 
to the glory and the credit of the chief of staff. In his report to 
the War Department, just as this campaign was getting started, 
General Rosccrans says: "I hope it will not he considered invid- 
ious if I specially mention Brigadier-General James A. Garfield, 
an able soldier, zealous, devoted to duty, prudent and sagacious. 
I feel much indebted to him both for his counsel and assistance 
in the administration of this army. lie possesses the instincts and 
energy of a great commander." 

Historians are unanimous in their opinion that the Tullahoma 
campaign was one of the most masterly exhibitions of strategic 
genius possible to the commander of a great army. Mahan, au- 
thor of the Critical History of the Civil War, wdio is ever ready to 
attack and expose the blunders of the Union generals, declares 
that this Tullahoma campaign shows " as skillful combinations as 
the history of icar presents." 

But the Tullahoma campaign was not the conclusion of the ad- 
vance which General Garfield had so persistently urged, and the 
success of which had been so triumphantly demonstrated. An im- 
portant line of defense had been broken through ; an enormous piece 
of territory had been captured. But Bragg still held Chattanooga, 
which was the objective point of the Array of the Cumberland. 
In his argument of June 12, to induce an advance, Garfield had 
said: "While it M'ould lengthen our communications, ft would 
give us possession of JNIc^SIinnville, and enable us to threaten Oiat- 
ianoor/a and East Tennessee; and it would not be unreasonable to 
expect an early occupation of the former place." It is yet to be 
seen what fulfillment there was of this prophecy. 

After the Tullahoma victory, and Bragg's retreat behind the 
Tennessee River, Rosccrans stopped. Again, the War Dei)artment 
ordered an advance. Again, the commander-in-chief refused. 
Again, Garfield urged that no delay take place. Rosccrans was 



HEEO AND GENERAL.— ROSECTvANS'S ADVANCE. 139 

immovable. The Department waited ; the army waited ; the coun- 
try waited. At last the following dispatch was received : 

" Washington, August 5, 1863. 
"The orders for the advance of your urn.y, and that its progress be re- 
ported daily, are peremptoiy. H. W. Halleck." 

The thing required was stupendous, but the results show it was 
not impossible. Sixty miles from the Union army was the Ten- 
nessee River and Cumberland Mountains. Both run from north- 
cast to south-west. There are in tliese lofty mountain ranges 
occasional gaps, through wliich the great east and west tratlic of 
the country takes place. Chattanooga, in 1863 a town of fifteen 
hundred inhabitants, is in the most important of these gaps — the 
one through which passes the Tennessee River and an important 
net-work of railroads. The town is right in the mountains, twenty- 
five hundred feet above the sea-level, and was strongly fortified, and 
practically impregnable to assault. Along the north-west front of 
the town runs the river, which would have to be crossed by the 
Union forces. On the southern side of the river, below Chatta- 
nooga, are three parallel ranges: Sand jNIountain, Lookout Mount- 
ain, and Pigeon Ridge, — the valleys between the ridges running 
up to the gap at Chattanooga. North-east of the town the ridges 
begin again, and the general configuration of the country is sim- 
ilar. Chattanooga was south-east from where the Union army Avas 
situated. The town was the lock, and Bragg's army the key, to 
the door to Georgia, Virginia, and the Carolinas. To unlock this 
door vt^as the task before the Army of the Cumberland. 

But the problem of Rosecrans's advance contained other com- 
plications beside the deep river, the lofty mountains, and the heavy 
fortifications. His army had to depend for its supplies upon Louis- 
ville, Kentucky, and the slender line of railway from that place. 
Every advance necessitated the weakening of his army by leaving 
strong detachments to preserve this communication ; while, on 
the other hand, Bragg, already reinforced, would grow stronger all 
the time as he fell back on his reserves. 

It is reasonable to suppose that the reason Garfield had urged 



140 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

the advance toward Chattanooga was that he saw a way in M'hich it 
eouhl be made. When the peremptory order came, a plan for the 
advance was projected, which, though vaster and more complicated 
than that of the Tullahoma campaign, contains the same elements, 
and shows itself to have been the work of the same mind. It was, 
indeed, a continuation of the same campaign. The plan was Rosc- 
crans's, because he adopted it. It was Garfield's, because he origin- 
ated it. The theory of the advance was to pass the enemy's flank, 
march to his rear, threaten his line of supplies and compel him, 
by military strategy, to evacuate Chattanooga, as he had Shelby- 
ville and Tullahoma. The door would thus be unlocked, and 
Bragg's army driven from its last fortification to the open country. 
The details of the plan, as prepared by Garfield, will appear as the 
advance is explained. On August 16th began the movement of 
the army across the mountains toward the Tennessee River. The 
paramount effort in the manner of the advance was to deceive the 
enemy as to the real intention. 

The army made the movement along three separate routes. 
Crittenden's corps, forming the left, was to advance by a circuitous 
route, to a point about fifteen miles south-west of Chattanooga, and 
make his crossing of the Tennessee River there. Thomas, as our 
center, was to cross a little farther down stream, and McCook, 
thirty miles farther to the right. These real movements were to 
be made under the cover of an apparent one. About seven thou- 
sand men marched directly to the river shore, opposite Chattanooga, 
as if a direct attack were to be made on the place. " The extent 
of front presented, the show of strength, the vigorous shelling of 
the city by Wilder's artillery, the bold expression of the whole 
movement, constituted a brilliant feint." Bragg was deceived again. 
Absorbed in the operations in front of the place, he offered no re- 
sistance to the crossing of the Tennessee River by the main army. 

By September 3d, the Union forces were all on the southern side 
of the Tennessee. Sand Mountain, the first of the ridges on that 
side of the river, rises abruptly from the bank. The repair and con- 
struction of roads occupied a little time ; but Thomas and McCook 
pushed forward vigorously, and by the evening of the 6th of Sep- 



HERO AXD GEXERAL.— CAPTURE OF CHATTANOOGA. 141 

tember had crossed Sand ^lountain, and occupied the valley be- 
tween it and the Lookout Range. Each of these corps had 
crossed the range at points opposite their crossings of the river^ 
and, though in the same valley^ were thirty-five miles apart. 
Crittenden, instead of crossing, turned to his left, and marched 
up the river bank toward Chattanooga, and crossed into the Look- 
out Valley by a pass near the town. On the 7th the next stage of 
the movement began, viz : the crossing of Lookout Range, in order 
to pass to the enemy's rear, and, by endangering his supplies, com- 
pel him to abandon Chattanooga. 

As soon as Bragg's spy-glasses on Lookout Mountain, at Chat- 
tanooga, disclosed this movement, the order to evacuate the place 
was given. Shelbyville and TuUahoma were repeated, and on the 
morning of September 9th Crittenden marched in and took the 
-place without the discharge of a gun. Strategy had again tri- 
umphed. The door was unlocked. The fall of Chattanooga was 
accomplished. The plan of the campaign had been carried out 
successfully. The North was electrified. The South utterly dis- 
comfited. Of the fall of Chattanooga, which, as we have shown, 
was but the continuation of the plan of the Tullahoma campaign, 
and was predicted by Garfield, even to the manner of its accom- 
plishment, in his argument to Rosecrans in favor of an advance, 
Pollard, the Confederate historian, writes : 

"Thus we Avere maneuvered out of this strategic stronghold. 
Two-thirds of our niter beds were in this region, and a large pro- 
portion of the coal which supplied our foundries. It abounded in 
the necessaries of life. It w^as one of the strongest mountain 
countries in the world ; so full of lofty mountains that it has been 
not inaptly called the Switzerland of America. As the possession 
of Switzerland opened the door to the invasion of Italy, Germany, 
and France, so the possession of East Tennessee gave easy access 
to Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama." 

It is easy to see that behind this masterly strategy there was 
a masterly strategist. That man was Resecrans's chief of staff. 

What had become of Bragg's army of fifty thousand men? 
Rosecrans thought it was in full retreat. Halleck, Commander- 



142 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

in-chlcf, tolcgraphcd from Washington, on the lltli, that infor- 
mation liad been received that Bvagg^s army loas being xiscd to re- 
■ivforce Lcc, a certain indication of retreat. The fact was tliat Lee 
was reinforcing Bragg. Halleck also telegraphed on the same 
day that reinforcements were coming to Rosccrans, and that it 
would be decided whether he should vwve further into Georgia 
and Alabama. This telegram completed the delusion of Rose- 
crans. He believed Bragg was many miles to the south. The 
campaign planned by Garfield had been completed. But Bose- 
crans made a fatal blunder. Instead of marching the corps of 
Thomas and McCook up the Lookout Valley to Chattanooga, and 
uniting them with Crittenden's, he ordered the crossing of the 
range as a flank movement to be continued in order to intercept 
Bragg's supposed retreat. Accordingly, on the 11th and 12th, 
Tliomas recommenced to push over Lookout Mountain through a 
pass, twenty-five miles south-east of Chattanooga ; and thirty-five 
miles beyond Thomas, McCook was doing the same thing. 

With the Union army thus divided, Bragg was waiting his ter- 
rible opportunity. Instead of being in full retreat, many miles 
away, his entire army occupied Pigeon Ridge along the valley on the 
southern side of Lookout Range, into which Thomas and JMcCook 
must descend from the INIountuin passes. Down the center of this 
valley runs a little river, the Chickamauga. On the southern 
side of this stream, just opposite the pass from which Thomas's 
corps of eighteen thousand devoted men would emerge, was con- 
centrated the entire rebel army, waiting to destroy the isolated 
parts of the Army of the Cumberland in detail. The region oc- 
cupied by Bragg was covered with dense forests, and he was 
further concealed by the low heights of Pigeon Ridge. When 
Thomas's corps should have debouched from the pass through 
Lookout Range, and crossed the Chickamauga to ascend Pigeon 
Ridge, it was to be overwhelmed. Then McCook and Crittenden, 
sixty-five miles apart, would be separately destroyed. It fortu- 
nately luippencd that General Negley's division descended from 
the gap on tlie 12th, and crossed the Chickamauga several miles 
in advance of the jtnain body of Thomas's corps. Unexpectedly, 



HERO AND GENERAL.— A CRISIS. 143 

finding the enemy in great force on the opposite ridge, he swiftly 
withdrevr, checked Thomas from further advance, and enabled the 
corps to take up an impregnable position in the gap through 
Lookout Range. . 

Thus foiled, Bragg then resolved to ■ strike Crittenden, but 
eventually failed in this also. These failures gave the alarm. 
Brngg's army was not ready for flight but for fight. It was now 
a matter of life and death for Rosecrans to concentrate his army 
before battle. Couriers were dispatched at break-neck speed to 
McCook, sixty-five miles away, and to Crittenden who had pushed 
on twenty miles beyond Chattanooga, in imaginary pursuit of 
Bragg. In some absolutely inexplicable way, Bragg failed for 
four days to make the attack. In those precious days, from Sep- 
tember 13th to 17th, Garfield worked night and day, as chief of 
staff, to reach the scattered divisions, explore the shortest roads 
through those lofty mountains, and hasten that combination which 
alone could save the army from destruction. The suspense was 
terrible. But Bragg lost his opportunity by delaying too long. 
Heavy reinforcements for him were arriving, and he thought he 
was growing stronger. On the 17th and 18th Bragg was found to 
be moving his army up the valley toward Chattanooga, thus ex- 
tending his right far beyond Rosccrans's left, with the evident object 
of throwing his army upon the roads between the Union army and 
Chattanooga. To meet this, the Union army was moved in the 
same direction. 

These movements of both armies up the valley, Bragg being 
south of the Chickamauga and Rosecrans north, were continued 
until the position was almost south of Chattanooga, instead of 
south-west. Parallel with our army, and immediately in its rear, 
were two roads leading to Chattanooga, — the one immediately in 
the rear known as the Lafayette or Rossville road; the other a 
little further back, as the Dry Valley road. At the junction of 
these roads, half way to Chattanooga, itself eight miles distant, was 
the town of Rossville. These roads were the prizes for which was 
to be fought one of the most bloody and awful battles of the war. 
The loss of either was equally fatal, but the main Rossville road, 



14-1 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

being tlic most exposed, was the principal object of the enemy^s 
attacks. The efforts of the enemy at first were to overlap or turn 
the left flank. This would have given them the Rossville road. 
Failing in this they drove the center back, the center and left 
turning like a door upon the hinge at the extreme left, until the 
line of battle was formed directly across the roads instead of par- 
allel with them. This was accomplished during the second diiy's 
fight. 

General Thomas commanded the left wing, Crittenden the cen- 
ter, and McCook the right. The front of the army, facing almost 
east, was ranged up and down the valley from north to south, with 
the river in front and the roads in their rear. The whole valley 
was covered with dense forests, except where a farm had beers 
made, and was full of rocky hills and ridges. So much concealed 
was one part of the valley from ano'ther, that the rebel army of 
fifty thousand men was formed in line of battle within a mile of 
the union lines on the same side of the river, withont cither army 
suspecting the other's presence. 

Such was the situation on the morning of September 19th, 1863. 
The world knows of the awful conflict which followed. General 
Garfield was located at Widow Glenn's house, in the rear of the 
right wing. This was Rosccrans's head-quarters. General Thomas 
located himself at Kelley's farm-house in the rear of the loft wing. 
For three nights General Garfiekl had not slept as many hours. 
Every anxious order, for the concentration of the army, had 
come from him; every courier and aid during those days and 
nights of suspense reported to him in person; before him lay his 
maps; each moment since the thirteenth he had known the exact 
position of the different corps and divisions of our vast army. 
Looking for the attack at any moment, it was necessary to con- 
stantly know the situation of the enemy among those gloomy mount- 
ains and sunless forests. When the red tide of battle rolled 
through the valley, each part of the line was ignorant of all the 
rest of the line. The right wing could not even guess the direc- 
tion of the left wing. The surrounding forests and the hills shut 
in the center so completely that it did not know where either of 



HERO AND GENERAL.— CHICKAMAUGA. 145 

the wings were. Every division commander simply obeyed the 
orders from head-quarters, took his position, and fought. The 
line of battle was formed in the night. To misunderstand orders 
and take the wrong position was easy. But so lucid were the com- 
n ands, so particular the explanations which came from the man 
at head-quarters, that the line of battle was perfect. Many battles 
of the war were fought with but few orders from head-quarters; 
some without any concerted plan at all. Pittsburgh Landing, of 
the latter sort; Gettysburg, of the former sort. At Gettysburg, 
the commander-in-chief, General Meade, had little to do with the 
battle. The country was open, the enemy's whereabouts was vis- 
ible, and each division commander placed his troops just where they 
could do the most good. Not so at Chickamauga. No battle of 
the war required so many and such incessant orders from head- 
quarters. The only man in the Union army who knew the whole 
situation of our troops was General Garfield. Amid the forests, 
ravines and hills along the five miles of battle front, the pnly 
possible way to maintain a unity of plan and a concert of action 
was for the man at head-quarters to know it all. General Gar- 
field knew the entire situation as if it had been a chess-board, and 
each division of the army a man. At a touch, by the player, the 
various brigades and divisions assumed their positions. 

Every thing thus far said has been of the combatants. But there 
were others on the battle-field. There were the inhabitants of 
this valley, non-combatants, inviolate by the rules of civilized war- 
fare. Of this sort were the rustic people at Widow Glenn's, wher« 
General Garfield passed the most memorable days of his life. The 
house was a Tennessee cabin. Around it lay a little farm Avith 
small clearings. Here the widow lived M'ith her three children, 
one a young man, the others a girl and boy of tender age. As 
General Garfield took up his head-quarters there it is said to have 
reminded him powerfully of his own childhood home with hi.^ 
toiling mother. All the life of these children had been passed in 
this quiet valley. Of the outside workl they knew little, and cared 
less. They did not know the meaning of the word war. They 
Avere ignorant and poverty-stricken, but peaceful. Shut in by ^' 



146 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

mountains of ignorance, as well as the lofty ranges along the valley, 
they had known no event more startling than the flight of birds 
through the air or the rustle of the wind through the forest. The 
soil Avas rocky and barren like their minds; yet, unvisited by ca- 
lamity, they were happy. 

But suddenly this quiet life was broken into. The forests were 
filled with armed men. The cabin was taken possession of by the 
officers. A sentinel stood at the door. Outside stood dozens of 
horses, saddled and bridled. Every moment some one mounted 
and dashed away ; every moment some other dismounted from his 
breathless and foam-flecked steed and rushed into the cabin. The 
widow, stunned and frightened, sat in the corner with an arm 
around each of her children. The little girl cried, but the boy's 
curiosity got someM-hat the better of his fear. A time or two 
General Garfield took the little fellow on his knee, and quieted his 
alarm. The fences were torn down and used for camp fires. 
Great trees were hastily felled for barricades. In front of the 
house passed and repassed bodies of troops in uniform, and with 
deadly rifles. Now and then a body of cavalry dashed by in a 
Avhirlwind of dust. Great cannon, black and hideous, thundered 
down the rocky road, shaking the solid earth in their terrible race. 
The cabin-yard was filled with soldiers. The well Avas drained 
dry by them to fill their canteens. It was like a nightmare to 
the trembling inhabitants of the cabin. Their little crops were 
tramped into dust by the iron tread of Avar. On a hill in front 
of the cabin, where nothing more dangerous than a ploAv had e\'er 
been, a battery froAvned. The A-alley Avhich had never been dis- 
turbed by any thing more startling than the screech of an oavI, or 
the cackle of the barn-yard, Avas filled Avith a muffled roar from the 
falling trees and the shouts of men. 

When morning broke on the 19th of September, 1863, on this 
secluded spot, the clarion of the strutting cock Avas supplanted by 
the bugle-call. The moaning of the wind through the forest Avas 
drowned in the incessant roll of the drums. The movement of 
troops before the cabin from right to left became more rapid. The 
consultations A\'ithin became more eager and hurried. Mysterious 



HERO AND GENERAL.— CHICKAMAUGA. 147 

notes, on slips of white paper, were incessantly written by General 
Garfield and handed to orderlies, who galloped away into the for- 
est. Spread ont before him, on an improvised table, lay his maps, 
which he constantly consulted. At one time, after a long study 
of the map, he said to General Rosecrans : " Thomas will have the 
brunt of the battle. The liossville road must be held at all haz- 
ards." Rosecrans replied : " It is true. Thomas must hold it, if 
he has to be reinforced by the entire army." At another time, a 
messenger dashed into the room, and handed the chief of staff an 
envelope. Quietly opening it, he calmly read aloud: " Longstreet 
has reinforced Bragg with seventeen thousand troops from Lee's 
Virginia army." 

Toward nine o'clock in the morning, the movement of troops 
along the road ceased. The roar in the forest subsided. No more 
orders were sent by General Garfield. There was suspense. It 
w^as as if every one were waiting for something. The drums no 
longer throbbed ; the bugle-call ceased from echoing among the 
mountains. A half hour passed. The silence was death-like. 
As the sun mounted upward it seemed to cast darker sliadow\s 
than usual. The house-dog gave utterance to the most plaintive 
howls. The chickens were gathered anxiously together under a 
shed, as if it were about to rain. It was. But the rain was to 
be red. Passing over through the forest, one saw that the troops 
were drawn up in lines, all with their backs toward the road and 
the cabin, and facing the direction of the river. That was half a 
mile away, but its gurgle and plashing could be easily heard in the 
silence. It sent a shudder through one's frame, as if it Avere the 
gurgle and plashing of blood. The only other sound that broke 
the quiet was the whinnying of cavalry horses far off to the right. 
The dumb brutes seemed anxious, and nervously answered each 
other's eager calls. 

Just as the hand of the clock reached ten there was a report 
from a gun. It came from the extreme left, miles away. Gen- 
eral Giirfield stepped quickly to the door, and listened. Therfe 
was another gun, and another, and fifty more, swelling to a roar. 
Turning to Rosecrans, Garfield said : " It has begun." To which 



148 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

the commander replied: "Then, God help us." Heavier and 
heavier became the roar. The engagement on the left was evi- 
dently becoming heavier. A quarter of an hour later messengers 
began to arrive. The enemy was endeavoring to turn the left- 
flank, but Avas being repulsed with heavy loss. A few moments 
later came the word that the enemy had captured ten pieces of 
artillery. The order had been given for one division of the 
troops to fall back. It was obeyed. But the artillerymen had 
been unable to move the guns back in time. The heavy under- 
growth in the forest, the fallen and rotting logs, had made it slow 
work to drag back the ponderous cannon. The red-shirted 
cannoneers were still bravely working to move their battery to 
the rear after the line had fallen back from them a long distance. 
Suddenly, with a fierce yell, the rebel column poured in upon 
them. Guns and gunners were captured. 

At 11:30 came a call from General Thomas for reinforcements. 
General Garfield swiftly wrote an order for divisions in the center 
to march to the left and reinforce General Thomas. Another 
courier was dispatched to the right, ordering troops to take the 
place of those removed from the center. At half-past twelve 
these movements were completed. So fiir, the only attack had 
been on the left, though the tide of battle was rolling slowly 
down the line. General Rosecrans and General Garfield held an 
earnest consultation. It was decided to order an advance on the 
right center, in order to prevent the enemy from concentrating 
his whole army against our left wing. 

Before long the din of conflict could be heard opposite the 
cabin. The advance was being fiercely contested. Messengers 
one after another came asking for reinforcements. " General Gar- 
field received their messages, asked each one a question or two, 
turned for a few moments to his map, and then issued orders for 
support to the right center. As the battle raged fiercer in front 
of the cabin, the sounds from the extreme left grew lighter. At 
two o'cock they ceased altogether. The battery had been recapt- 
ured, and the enemy silenced for the time being. Meanwhile, 
the battle at the center became more terrible. Ambulances hur- 



HEKO AND GENERAL.— CHICK AM AUGA. 149 

ried along. Poor fellows, pale and bleeding, staggered back to 
the road. Occasionally a shell dropped near the cabin, exploding 
with frightful force. The roar was deafening. General Garfield 
had to shout to General Resecrans in order to be understood. 
The domestic animals around the cabin were paralyzed with 
fright. No thunder-storm, rattling among the mountain peaks, 
had ever shaken the earth like the terrific roar of the shotted guns. 
A half mile in front of the cabin, a dense smoke rose over the 
tops of the trees. All day long it poured upward in black vol- 
umes. The air became stifliiig with a sulphurous smell of gun- 
powder. The messengers hurrying to and from the cabin had 
changed in appearance. The bright, clean uniforms of the morn- 
ing were torn and muddy. Their faces were blaqk with smoke ; 
their eyes bloodshot with fever. Some of them came up with 
bleeding wounds. When General Garfield called attention to the 
injury, they w'ould say: " It is only a scratch." In the excite- 
ment of battle men receive death wounds without being conscious 
that they are struck. Some of the messengers sent out came back 
no more forever. Their horses would gallop up the road riderless. 
The riders had found the serenity of death. " They were aslcej) 
in the windowless palace of rest." 

It was impossible to predict the issue of the conflict in the cen- 
ter. At one minute, a dispatch was handed Garfield, sjiying that 
the line was broken, and the enemy pouring through. Before he 
had finished the reading, another message said that our troo|)s 
had rallied, and were driving the enemy. This was repeated sev- 
eral times. 

The scene of this conflict was Vineyard's farm. It was a clear- 
ing, surrounded on all sides by the thickest woods. The troops 
of each army, in the alternations of advance and retreat, found 
friendly cover in the woods, or fatal exposure in the clearing. It 
was this configuration of the battle-field which caused the fluctua- 
tions of the issue. Time after time a column of blue charged across 
the clearing, and was driven back to rally in the sheltering forest. 
Time after time did the line of gray advance from the shade into 
the sunlight only to retire, leaving half their number stretched 



150 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

lifeless on the field. It was a battle within a battle. The rest of 
the army could hear the terrific roar, but were ignorant of the 
whereabouts of the conflict. The farm and the surrounding woods 
was a distinct battle-field. The struggle upon it, though an im- 
portant elenicnt in a great battle on a vtist field, was, during the 
later hours of its continuance, a separate battle, mapped upon the 
open field and forest in glaring insulation by the bodies of the 
slain. 

Meanwhile, in hurrying reinfoix?ements to this portion of the line 
of battle, a chasm was (>})cned between the center and left. Troops 
were thrown forward to occupy it, but the enemy had discovered 
the weakness, and hurled for\vard heavy columns against the de- 
voted Union lines. The struggle here was the counterpart of the 
one at the Vineyard farm. At the latter place the line was„ at one 
time in the afternoon, driven back to the Liifayette road; but, 
towards evening, the divisions which had repulsed the attack on 
General Thomas's extreme left were shiftwl down to the scene of 
these other conilicls, and the enemy was finally driven back with 
heavy loss. 

When this was accomplished, the sun had already sunk behind 
the western raiigt'. Xight swiftly drew her mantle over the angry 
field, and spread above the combatants her canopy of stars. The 
firing became weaker; only aiow and then a sullen shot was fircd 
into the night. The first day of Chickamauga was done. In a 
little while ten thousand camp-fires blazed up in the forest, throw- 
ing sf)mber shadows back of every objeet. At eveiy fire could be 
seen the; ii-ying bacon and the steaming coffee-pot, singing as mer- 
rily as if war and battle were a thousand miles away. The men had 
eaten nothing since five o'clock in the morning. They had the 
appetites of hungiy giants. Many a messmate's place was empty, 
^lany a corpse lay in the thicket, Avith a ball through the lieart. 
But in the midst of horror the men Avere happy. The coffee and 
hacon and hard-tack tasted to the heroes like a banquet of the 
gods. AVith many a song and many a jest they finished the meal, 
rolled uj) in their blankets, and, lying clown on the groinid, with 
knapsacks for pillows, were fast asleep in the darkness. The red 



HERO AND GENERAL.— CHICKAMAUGA. 151 

embers of the camp-lircs gradually went out. The darkness and 
the silence were unbroken, save by the gleam of a star through 
the overarching branches, or the tramp of the watchful senthiels 
among the rustling leaves. 

But at Widow Glenn's cabin there was no sleep. General Gar- 
field dispatched messengers to the different generals of the army 
to assemble for a council of war. It was eleven o'clock before 
all were present. Long and anxious was the session. The chief 
of staif marked out the situation of each division of the army upon 
his map. The losses were estimated, and the entire ground gone 
over. On the whole, the issue of the day had been favorable. 
The army having been on the defensive, might be considered so 
far victorious in that it had held its own. The line of battle was 
now continuous, and much shorter than in the morning. The 
general movement of troc^ps during the day had been from right 
to left. The battle front was still parallel Avith the Chattanooga 
roads. General Thomas still held his own. The losses had been 
heavy, but not so severe as the enemy's. But it was evident that 
the battle would be renewed on the morrow. The troops, already 
exhausted by forced marches in the eifort to concentrate before 
attack, had all been engaged during the day. It was tolerably 
certain. General Garfield thought, from the reports of his scouts, 
that the enemy would have fresh troops to oppose to the wearied 
men. This would necessitate all the army being brought into 
action again on the next day. In case the enemy should succeed 
in getting the roads to Chattanooga, there was no alternative but 
the entire destruction of the splendid Army of the Cumberland. 
Still further concentration of the forces on the left, to reinforce 
General Thomas, was decided on. Many of the tired troops had 
to be roused from their sleep for this movement. There was no 
rest at head-quarters. ^Yhen morning dawned the light still shone 
from the cabin window. 

On the morning of September 20, 1863, a dense fog rose from 
the Chickaraauga River, and, mixing with the smoke from the 
battle of the day before, filled the valley. This fact delayed the 
enemy's attack. The sun rose, looking through the fog like a vast 



152 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

disk of blood. General Garfield noticed it, and, pointing to t-he 
phenomenon, said: " It is ominous. It will indeed be a day of 
blood." By nine o'clock the fog lifted sufficiently for the attack. 
As on the day before, it began on the left, rolling down the lino. 
From early morning General Thomas withstood the furious as- 
saults of the constantly reinforced enemy. The change of the line 
in the night had been such that it was the right wing instead of 
the center which was now in front of the Widow Glenn's. The 
battle was fierce and more general than the day before. The de- 
mands for reinforcements on the left came faster and faster. Di- 
vision after division was moved to the left. In the midst of a 
battle these movements are dangerous. A single order, given from 
head-quarters without a perfect comprehension of the situation of 
the troops, a single ambiguous phrase, a single erroneous punctua- 
tion mark in the hastily-written dispatch, may cost thousands of 
lives in a few minutes. In a battle like Chickamauga, where the 
only unity possible is by perfect and swift obedience to the com- 
mands from head-quarters, a single misunderstood sentence may 
change the destiny of empires. 

The information received at Widow Glenn's up to ten o'clock 
of the 20th showed that the troops, though wearied, were holding 
their own. Up to this time General Garfield, appreciating each 
emergency as it occurred, had directed every movement, and writ- 
ten every order during the battle. Not a blunder had occurred. 
His clear, unmistakable English, had not a doubtful phrase or a 
misplaced comma. Every officer had understood and executed 
just what Avas expected of him. The fury of the storm had so far 
spent itself in vain. 

At half-past ten, an aid galloped up to the cabin and informed 
General Rosecrans that there was a chasm in the center, between 
the divisions of General Reynolds on the left and General Wood 
on the right. Unfortunate moment ! .Cruel fate ! In a moment 
a blunder was committed which was almost to destroy our heroic 
tirmy. In the excitement of the crisis, Rosecrans varied from his 
custom of consulting the chief of staff. General Garfield wa.? 
deeply engaged at another matter. Rosecrans called another aid 



HERO AND GENERAL.— CHICK AMAUG A. 153 

to write an order instantly directing Wood to close the gap by 
moving to his left. Here is the document as it was dashed down 
at that memorable and awful moment; 

" PIead-Quarters Department of Cumberland, ) 
"(September 20th — 10.45 A. M. / 

'^Brigadier-General TFoof/, Commanding Division: 

"The general commanding directs that you close up on Iveynolds as 

fast as possible, and support him. Respectfully, etc., 

"Frank S. Bond, Major aud Aid-de-camp." 

Had General Garfield been consulted that order would never 
have been written. Wood was not next to Reynolds. General 
Brannan^s division was in the line beticeen them. Brannan'.s force 
stood back from the Hue somewhat. The aid, galloping rapidly over 
the field, did not know that a little farther back in the forest stood 
Brannan's division. It looked to him like a break in the line. 
General Rosecrans was either ignorant, or forgot that Brannan 
was there. General Garfield alone knew the situation of everv 
division on the battle-field. This fatal order roas the only one of 
the entire battle lohich he did not write himself. On receipt of the 
order. General Wood was confused. He could not close up on 
Reynolds because Brannan was in the way. Supposing, however, 
from the words of the order, that Reynolds was heavily pressed, and 
that the intention was to reinforce him, and knowing the extreme 
importance of obeying orders from head-quarters, in order to pre- 
vent the army from getting inextricably tangled in the forest, he 
promptly marched his division backward, passed to the rear of 
Brannan, and thus to the rear of and support of Reynolds. 

The fatal withdrawal of Wood from the line of battle was sim- 
ultaneous with a Confederate advance. Failing in his desperate 
and bloody attacks upon the left, Bragg ordered an advance all 
along the line. Right opposite the chasm left by Wood was Lono-- 
street, the most desperate fighter of the Confederacv, ^vith seven- 
teen thousand veteran troops from Lee's army. Formed in solid 
column, three-quarters of a mile long, on they came right at the 
gap. Two brigades of Federal troops, under General Lytic, reached 



154 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

the space first, but were instantly ground' to powder beneath this 
tremendous ram. liight through the gap came the wedge, splitting 
the Union anuy in two. In fifteen minutes the entire right wing 
was a rout. One-half the army was in a dead run toward Ross- 
ville. Guns, knapsacks, blankets, whatever could impede them, 
Mas hastily thrown away. 

So sudden was the rout that the stream of fugitives, swarming 
back from the woods, was the first information received at Widow 
Glenn's that the line had been pierced. There was no time to be 
lost. Behind the fleeing troo])s came the iron columns of tlie en- 
emy. In five minutes more the cabin would be in their hands. 
Hastily gathering his precious maps, Garfield followed Rosecrans 
on horseback, over to the Dry Valley road. Here General Gar- 
field dismounted, and exerted all his powers' to stem the tide of 
retreat. Snatching a flag from a flying color-bearer, he shouted at 
the deaf ears of the mob. Seizing men by their shoulders he would 
turn them around, and then grasp others to try and form a nucleus 
to resist the flood. It was useless. The moment he took his 
hands off of a man he would run. 

Rejoining Rosecrans, who believed that the entire army was 
routed, the commander said: '' Garfield, what can be done?" Un- 
dismayed by the panic-stricken army crowding past him, which is 
said to be the most demoralizing and unnerving sight on eartli, 
Garfield calmly said, " One of us should go to Chattanooga, se- 
cure the bridges in case of total defeat, and collect the fragments 
of the army on a new line. The other should make his way, if 
possible, to Thomas, explain the situation, and tell him to hold his 
ground at any cost, until the army can be rallied at Chattanooga." 
"Which will you do?" asked Rosecrans. "Let me go to the 
front," was ( Jenoral Garfield's instant reply. " It is dangerous," 
said lie, " but the army and country can better atford for me to be 
kiHcd than i'ur you." They dismounted for a hurried consulta- 
tion. AVitli car on the ground, the^ anxiously listened to the sound 
of 'i'homas's guns. "It is no use," said Rosecrans. "The fire is 
broken and irregular. Thomas is driven. I^et us both hurry to 
Chattanooga, to save what can be saved." But General Garfield 



HERO A^-D GE^'ErvAL.-CIIICKAMAUGA. 



1^ 



had a better ear. " You arc mistaken. The fire is still in regular 
vollevs. Thomas holds his own, and must be informed of the 
situation. Send orders to Sheridan, and the other commanders of 
the right wing, to collect the fragments of their commands and 




^^mm 



\PIirLD AT TlIF BATTir OF rmCKAM\UGA 



move them through Ross- 
ville, and back on the La- 
fayette road, to Thomas'>> 
support." There were a 
few more hurried ^\ord^ ; 
then a grasp of the hand 
and the commander and his chief of staff separated, the one to go 
to the rear, the other to the front. Rosecrans has said that he 
felt Garfield would never come back again. 

Then began that world-famous ride. No one knew the situation 
of the troops, the cause of the disaster, and the way to retrieve it 
like the chief of staff. To convey that priceless information to 
Thomas, Garfield determined to do or to die. He was accompa- 
nied by Captain Gano, who had come from General Thomas before 
the disaster, and knew how to reach him ; besides these two, each 



156 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

officer had an orderly. On they galloped up the Dry Valley road, 
parallel with, but two miles back of, the morning's line of battle. 
After reaching a point opposite the left wing, they expected to; 
cross to General Thomas. But Longstreet's column, after passing, 
the Union center, had turned to its right at AVidow Glenn's,; 
to znarch to -the rear of General Thomas, and thus destroy that' 
part of the army which still stood fighting the foe in its face. 
The course of Longstrect was thus parallel with the road along 
which Garfield galloj^ed. At every effort to cross to the front he 
found the enemy between him and General Thomas. 

It was a race between the rebel column and the noble steed 
on which Garfield rode. Up and down along the stony valley 
road, sparks flying from the horse's heels, two of the party hat- 
less, and all breathless, wdthout delay or doubt on dashed the 
heroes. Still the enemy was between them and Thomas. They 
were compelled to go almost to Rossville. At last General 
Garfield said : " We mast try to cross now or never. In a half 
hour it will be too late for us to do any good." Turning sharply 
to their right, they found themselves in a dark-tangled forest. 
They were scratched and bleeding from the brier thickets and the 
overhanging bmnchcs. But not a rider checked his horse. 
General Garfield's horse seemed to catch the spirit of the race. 
Over ravines and fences, through an almost inpenctrable under- 
growth, sometimes through a marsh, and then over broken rocks^ 
the smoking steed plunged without a quiver. 

Suddenly they came upon a cabin, a Confederate pest-house. A 
crowd of unfortunates, in various stages of the small-pox, were sit- 
ting and lying about the lonely and avoided place. The other 
riders spurred on their way, but General Garfield reined in sharp- 
ly, and, calling in a kind tone to the strongest of the wregks, 
asked, " Can I do any thing for you, my poor fellow?" In an in- 
stant the man gasped out, " Do not come near. It is small-pox. 
But for God's sake give us money to buy food." Quick as thought 
the great-hearted chief of staff drew out his purse and tossed it to 
the man, and with a rapid but cheerful "good-bye" spurred after 
'lis companions. Crashing, tearing, plunging, rearing through the 



HERO AND GENERAL.— CHICKAMAUGA. 157 

forest dashed the steed. Poet's song could not be long to cele- 
brate that daring deed. 

Twice they stopped. They were on dangerous ground. At 
any moment they might come upon the enemy. They were right 
on the ground for which Longstreet's column was headed. Which 
would get thei'e first ? A third time they stopped. The roar of 
battle was very near. They were in the greatest peril. Utterly 
ignorant of the course of events, since he had been driven from 
Widow Glenn's, General Garfield did not know^ but what the 
rebel column had passed completely to Thomas's rear and lay di- 
rectly in front of them. They changed their course slightly to 
the left. Of his own danger Garfield never thought. The great 
fear in his mind was that he w^ould fail to reach Thomas, w^th the 
order to take command of all the forces, and with the previous 
information of the necessity of a change of front. At last they 
reached a cotton field. If the enemy was near, it was almost cer- 
tain death. Suddenly a rifle-ball whizzed past Gai-fiekFs face. 
Turning in his saddle he saw the fence on the right glittering 
with murderous rifles. A second later a showier of balls rattled 
around the little party. Garfield shoiited, " Scatter, gentlemen, 
scatter," and wheeled abruptly to the left. Along that side of the 
field, was a ridge. If it could be reached, they were safe. The 
two orderlies never reached it. Captain Gano's horse was shot 
through the lungs, and his own leg broken by the fall. Garfield 
was noAv the single target for the enemy. His own horse received 
two balls, but the noble animal kept straight on at its terrific 
speed. General Garfield speaking of it afterwards said that his 
thought was divided between poor Thomas and his young wife 
and child in the little home at Hiram. With a few more leaps he 
gained the ridge, unhurt. Captain Gano painfully crawling on the 
ground finally gained the ridge himself. 

General Thomas was still a mile away. In ten minutes Gar- 
field was at his side, hurriedly explaining the catastrophe at noon. 
They stood on a knoll overlooking the field of battle. The horse 
which had borne Garfield on his memorable ride, dropped dead 
at his feet while the chief of staff told Thomas the situation. 



158 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

There M-as no time to be lost. Hurrying down to his right, Gen- 
eral Thomas found that a considerable portion of the center had 
swung around like a door to oppose Longstreet's advance. For 
an hour or more his columns had flung themselves with desper- 
ate fury on this line so unexpectedly opposed to them. Hour after 
hour these lines had held him at bay. The slaughter was terri- 
ble. But this could not last. There was no uniform plan in this 
accidental battle front. There were great chasms in it. The Con- 
federate forces were diverging to their left toward the Dry Valley 
road, and would soon flank this line. But Thomas was a great 
commander. ^Vithout a moment's delay his line of battle was 
Avithdi-awn to a ridge in the form of a horse-shoe. The main front 
was now at right angles with that of the morning; that is, it lay 
across the Rossville road instead of parallel with it. Thomas's 
troops Avere now arranged in a three-quarter circle. They scarce- 
ly numbered twenty-five thousand. Around this circle, as around 
a little island, like an ocean of fire, raged a Confederate army of 
sixty thousand troops. Overwhelmed by numbers. General 
Thomas still held the horse-shoe ridge, through which lay the 
Ivossville road. The storm of battle raged with fearful ])Ower. 
The line of heroes seemed again and again about to be swallowed 
up in the encircling fire. Again and again Longstreet's troops 
charged with unexampled impetuosity, and as many times Avere 
beaten back bruised and bleeding. The crisis of the battle at 
half past four in the afternoon, when Longstrcet hurled forward 
his magnificent reserve corps, is said to have rivaled, in tragic im 
}X)rtance and fiir-reaching consequences, the supreme moment in 
the battle of Gettysburg, when Pickett's ten thousand Virginians, 
in solid column, charged upon Cemetery Ridge. 

But all the valor and all the fury was in vain. " George A. 
Thoma-," in the words of Garfield, " was indeed the ' rock of 
Chickamauga,' against which the wild waves of battle dashed in 
vain." 

General Garfield, from the moment of his arrival, had plunged 
into the thickest of the fray. When at last the thinned and 
shattered lines of gray withdrew, leaving thousands of their dead 



HEKO AND GENERAL.— CHICKAMAUG A. 159 

upon the bloody field, smoked and powder-grimed, he was person- 
ally managing a battery of which the chief gunners had been 
killed at their post. Towards the close of the fight Thomas's am- 
munition ran very low. His ammunition trains had become in- 
volved with the rout of the right, and were miles in the rear at 
Eossville. This want of ammunition created more fear than the 
assaults of the enemy. The last charge was repelled at portions 
of the line with the bayonet alone. 

But the hard-earned victory was won. The Rossville road 
Avas still held. The masterly skill and coolness of Thomas, when 
General Garfield reached him with information as to the rest of 
the army, which, it must be remembered, was never visible through 
the dense forests and jagged ridges of the valley, had saved the Army 
of the Cumberland from destruction. After night the exhausted 
men withdrew to Rossvillc and subsequently to Chattanooga, 

A great battle is a memorable experience to one who takes part. 
There is nothing like it on earth. Henceforth the participant is 
different from other men. All his preceding life becomes small and 
forgotten after such days as those of Chickamauga. From that day he 
feels that he began to live. When the flames of frenzy with which he 
was possessed subside, they have left their mark on his being. Ordi- 
narily the flames of battle have burnt out many sympathies. His nat- 
ure stands like a forest of charred and blackened trunks, once green 
and beautiful, waving in their leafy splendor, but tlirough which 
the destroying tempest of fire has passed in its mad career of venge- 
ance. He can neither forget nor forgive the murderous foe. Be*- 
fore the battle he might have exchanged tobacco plugs with the man 
with whom he would have, with equal readiness, exchanged shots. 
But after the carnage of the battle, after the day of blood and fury, 
all this is passed. The last gun is fired on the fiekV of battle. 
The last shattered line of heroes withdraws into the night. The 
earth has received its last baptism of blood for the time-being. 
Only burial parties, with white flags, may be seen picking their 
Avay among the fallen brave. The actual battle is over forever. 
Not so is it with the combatant. In his mind the battle goes on 
and on. He is perpetually training masked batteries on the foe. 



ICO LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

The roar of conflict never ceases to reverberate in his brain. 
Throughout his life, whenever recalled to the subject of the war, 
iiis mental attitude is that of the battle-field. In his thought the 
columns are still charging up the hill. The earth still shakes with 
an artillery that is never silenced. The air is still sulphurous with 
gunpowder smoke. The ranks of the brave and true still fall 
amund him. Forever is he mentally loading and firing; forever 
charging bayonets across the bloody field; forever burying the 
fallen heroes under the protection of the flag of truce. 

This is the law of ordinary minds. The red panorama of the 
(icttysburg and the Chickamauga is forever moving before his 
eyes. The wrench or strain given to his mental being by those 
days is too terrific, too awful, for any reaction in the average mind. 
This fact has been abundantly proven in the history of the last 
twenty years. Chickamauga thus became a new birth to many a 
soldier. His life, hencefiu'ward, seemed to date from the 19th of 
September, 1863. His life was ever afterward marked off bv 
anniversaries of that day. It is found that many soldiers die on 
the anniversary of some great battle in which they were partici- 
pants. Such is the influence mental states bear upon the physical 
organism. 

Chickamauga was all this to General Garfield. It was more 
than this to him. He was not merely a participant in the battle 
of bullets. He was also in the battle of brains. The field soldier 
certainly feels enough anxiety. His mental experience has enough 
of torture to gratify the monarch of hell himself. But the anxieties 
of the man at head-quarters are unsi)cakable. He sees not merely 
the actual horrors and the individual danger. He carries on his heart 
the responsibility for an army. He is responsible for the thousands 
«»f lives. A single mistake, a single blunder, a single defective 
plan, will forever desolate unnumbered firesides. More than this 
he feels. Not only the fate of the army, but the fate of the 
country rests in his hand. The burden is crushing. It may bo 
said this is only ujmn the Commander-in-chief. But General 
Garfield, as chief of staff, we have seen, was no figure-head, no 
amanuensis. He took the responsibilities of that campaign and 



HERO AND GENERAL.— CHICKAMAUGA. 



161 



battle to his own heart. At every step his genius grappled with 
the situation. Ilosecrans was a good soldier; but in nothing was 
his ability so exhibited as in selecting Garfield for his confidential 
adviser and trusting so fully to his genius. 

Thus the battle of Chickamauga entered into Garfield's mental 
experience in its greatest 
aspects. His profoundly 
sympathetic nature was 
subjected to an incalcu- 
lable strain. The struggle 
of the first day, the begin- 
ning of the second, the 
fatal order, the appalling 
catastrophe, the f e a r f u 1 
ride, the invincible cour- 
age of Thomas, the costly 
victory, all these things 
were incorporated into his 
life. He lived years in a 
single hour. He was only 
thirty-one years old. It was 
only nine years since the 
boys at Williams College 
had laughed at him as a 
green-horn ; only seven 
years since he had gradu- 
ated. But the education of Chickamauga gave him age. The maturity 
of the mind is not measured by time, but by experience. Previous 
to the Chattanooga campaign, General Garfield was a clever man. 
After the battle of Chickamauga he was a great man. 

Of the general results of the battle, we quote from Van Horn's 
magnificent but critical History of the Army of the Cuntberhmd : 
"AVhatever were the immediate and more local consequences of 
the battle, in its remote relations and significance, it has claims to 
historic grandeur. The Army of the Cumberland, without supjx^rt 
on either flank, had leaped across the Tennessee River and (lie 
11 




IGRAM OF THE BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA. 



162 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAKFIEl.D. 

contiguous mountains, and yet escaped destruction, though the 
armies of the enemy, east and west, were made tributary to a com- 
bination of forces to accomj)lish this end. Paroled prisoners from 
Vicksburg, regular trooi)S from Mississippi and Georgia, a veteran 
corps from Lee's army in Virginia, and Buckner's corps from East 
Tennessee, joined Bragg on the banks of the Chickamauga, not 
simply to retake Chattanooga, but to annihilate the Army of the 
Cumborlaud. Nearly half of Bragg's army consisted of recent 
reinforcements, sent to Northern Georgia wJnle the autlioritics at 
Was/iington, perplexed with the militarij sitiKttion, %cere resting under 
the delusion that General Bragg icas reinforcing Lee. But this 
heavy draft upon the resources of the Confederacy was burdened 
with the fatality which clung to all the grander efforts of the insur- 
gents in the west. And General Bragg's broken and exhausted 
army was a symbol of the fast-coming exhaustion of the Confeder- 
acy itself. The issue of the battle was not thus defined to the 
consciousness of the Southern people, but was, doubtless, one of the 
most emphatic disappointments of the struggle, and intensified the 
gloom produced by previous defeats." 

In his report of the battle to the Department of "War, General 
Rosecrans said : 

"To Brigadier-General James A. Garfield, chief of staff, I am es- 
pecially indebted for the clear and ready manner in which lie seized the 
points of action and movement, and expressed in orders the ideas of the 
general commanding." 

In relating the history of General Garfield's military career, no 
mention has been made of a fact which Avas destined to affect his 
future. In the fall of 1862, he had been nominated and elected to 
Congress from his own district. The thing had been accomplished 
in his absence, and almost without his knowledge. His term did 
not begin till December, 18G3, and his constituents supposed the 
war would be over before that time. Garfield himself looked at 
the thing with indifference. It did not interfere with his service 
in the army, could not do so for a long time, and there was noth- 
ing to hurry his decision in the matter. After the Tullahoraa 



HERO AND GENERAL.— CONGRESS OR THE ARMY? 163 

campaign, in the summer of 1863, when he had had a taste of 
successful military strategy, the Congressional question began 
to force itself to the surface of his thought. There was no 
prospect of peace. All his inclinations persuaded him to remain 
in the army. But Congress met in December, and he would have 
to decide. 

In this frame of mind, he had a long confidential talk with 
Rosecrans on the subject. Rosecrans told him he ought to enter 
Congress. 

" I am glad for your sake," said Rosecrans, " that you have a new 
distinction, and I certainly think you can accept it with honor; and, what 
is more, I deem it your duty to do so. The war is not over yet, nor 
will it be for some time to come. There will be, of necessity, many 
questions arising in Congress which will require not alone stAitesman-like 
treatment, but the advice of men having an acquaintance with military 
affairs. For this, and other reasons, I believe you will be able to do 
equally good service to your country in Congress as in the field." 

Still General Garfield was undecided, except on one thing: 
that was to wait. INIcantime the Chattanooga campaign came on, 
terminating at Chickamauga. Garfield was consumed with mili- 
tary zeal. He could hardly bear to think of chaining himself up 
to a desk for the monotonous sessions of Congress. All the mil- 
itary spirit whi^h had blazed in his ancestors reasserted itself in 
him. His mind was absorbed with the stupendous problems of 
war which the Rebellion presented. Recognizing within himself 
an ability superior to many around and above him for graj)pHng 
with questions of strategy, he M'as loath to abandon its exercise. 
It was evident, too, that in the presence of the commanding pro- 
portions of the military fame of successful Union generals, any 
merely Congressional reputation would be dwarfed and over- 
shadowed. 

On the other hand, his brother officers urged him to go to Con- 
gress. There was a painful need of military men there. The 
enormous necessities of the army seemed too great to be compre- 
hended by civilians. All men of soldierly instincts and abilities 



1G4 LIFE OF JAiVIES A. GARFIELD. 

were at the front, and there was danger that the foiintaui of sup- 
plies in the Lower House of Congress would dry up. 

In the midst of these doubts, two weeks after the battle of 
Chickamauga, he was summoned to Washington. The War De- 
partment demanded a full explanation of the battle which had 
cost so many thousand lives. Garfield was known at Washington, 
and they determined to have from him the comj^lete lilstory of 
the campaign, and an explanation of the necessities of the situa- 
tion. 

On his way to the Capital he, of course, went by the vine- 
covered cottage at Hiram. After the carnage and havoc of war, 
tlie peaceful fireside seemed a thousand times more dear than ever, 
worth all the blood and all the tears that were being shed for it. 
During his brief stay at home, his firef born, " Little Trot," only 
tliree years of age, was seized with a fatal illness, and carried to the 
quiet village cemetery. Oppressed with the private as well as the 
public sorrow, he continued on his journey to Washington. In 
Kew York City he staid over night with an old college friend, 
Henry E. Knox. Again he talked over the Congressional ques- 
tion in all its bearings. The conversation lasted far into the 
night. The friend knew the feeling of the country; he knew the 
need for military men in Congress, and he was well acquainted 
with Garfield's ability. His advice to General Garfield was to 
accept the Congressional seat as a public duty. 

But never was a man so unwilling to accept a place in Congress, 
General Garfield felt that he had a career before him if he re- 
mained in the army, and he wanted to do so. At last he agreed 
to submit the question to Mr. Lincoln. " I will lay it before him 
when I reach Washington, and let his decision settle the matter,"" 
said he. Garfield felt that his mission to the Capital was to save 
Rosecrans. When he called on Secretary Stanton, he was notified 
of his promotion to the rank of major-general, "for gallant and 
meritorious services at Chickamauga." This added further com- 
plexity to the Congressional question. Every detail of the move- 
ments of the Army of the Cumboi-land was gone through with by 
him before the War Department. With the aid of maps he made 



HERO AND GENERAL.— INTERCEDES FOR ROSECRANS. 165 

an elaborate presentation of the facts, from the long delay at ]Miir- 
freesboro clear through the Tullahoma and Chattanooga cam- 
paigns. His expose was masterly. Every thing he could do was 
done to save his chief. Montgomery Blaii-, one of the ablest men 
at the Capital, after listening to General Garfield's jireseutation of 
the facts, said to a friend, "Garfield is a great man." President 
Lincoln said: "I have never understood so fully and clearly the 
necessities, situation, and movements of any army in the field." 

But it was in vain. Stanton was firm. Hosecrans hnd to go. 
His obstinate refusals to advance from INIurfreesboro ; his testy 
and almost insulting letters; his violent temper, and uncontrol- 
lable stubbornness had ruined him long before Chickamauga. He 
had broken with the Commander-in-chief as well as with Secre- 
tary Stanton. He had said that he regarded certain suggestions 
from the Department "as a profound, grievous, cruel, and ungener- 
ous official and personal wrong." The powerful enemies which he 
thus made only waited for an opportunity to destroy him. That 
opportunity came with the fatal ord.n* at Chickamauga, the rout 
of the right wing, the loss of presence of mind, and the ride to 
the rear. This last stood in jminful contrast with General Gar- 
field's dangerous and heroic ride to the front. It was admitted 
that the strategy of the campaigns was splendid, Napoleonic. It 
could not be denied that the mistake as to the enemy's where- 
abouts after the evacuation of Chattanooga originated in the dis- 
patches from Washington. No matter. Rosecrans was relieved, 
and the chief of staif, whom Stanton correctly believed to have 
been very largely the originator of the strategic advance, was pro- 
moted. 

His immediate duty at AVashington being discharged, General 
Garfield laid the question of the seat in Congress before the man 
who, perhaps, felt more sympathy and appreciation for and with 
him than any other, because, like himself, Garfield sprang from 
poverty, Abraham Lincoln. The great, grave President thought 
it over, and finally said: 

"The Republican majority in Congress is very small, and It Is often 
doubtful whether we can carry the necessary war measures; and, besides, 



1G6 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

we are greatly lacking in men of military experience in the House to regn- 
late legislation about tlie army. It is your duty, therefore, to enter 
Congrct^s, at any rate for the present." 

This, for the time being, settled the matter. "With the under- 
standing that his rank would be restored if he desired to rctiira 
to the army, General Garfield reluctantly resigned his new niajor- 
genendship, a position whose salars^ was double that of a Congress- 
man, in order to enter on the following day the House of Kepre- 
sentative's. 

The greatest men seem often to have been those who were 
suddenly lifted out of the career of life which they had chosen, 
and to which they seemed to be preeminently adapted, and forced, 
as it were, by the exig-encies of the times, into a new channel, 
Julius Csesar, whose lofty character, unapproachable genius, and 
sorrowful death, are hardly eq[ualled in the annals of any age or 
country, had chosen for himself the career of a civil and religious 
officer of state. His chosen field was in the stately sessions of 
the Roman Senate, or before the turbulent multitudes of the 
forum. It M'as said of him by his enemies, that in speaking he 
excelled those who practiced no other art. It was said that, had 
he continued in his chosen career, he would have outshone, in his 
eloquence, every orator whose name and fame has been transmitted 
by Rome to later generations. But from this career ]ie was unex- 
pectedly taken. The dangers to the state from the Gallic tribes, 
and the restless Roman appetite for conquest, required a military 
leader. Almost by accident Csesar was drawn away from the sen- 
ate and the forum to take up the profession of arms. 

Unlike the great Roman, Garfield, under the stress of public 
necessity, was almost by accident withdrawn from the career of 
ai'ras, in which it may be truly said of him that he, too, excelled 
those who practiced no other art, to enter upon the career of a 
legislator. Cnesar exchanged the assembly for the camp, while the 
great American left the camp for the assembly. Each did so at 
the call of the state, and each was to become, in his new field, the 
master spirit of his generation. 

I 



i::^ xnE ascendant.— ix coxgeess. 1G7 



CHAPTER YI. 

IN THE ASCENDANT. 

In the New "World man climbs the rugged steep 
And takes the forefront by the force of will 
And daring purpose in him. 

ON the 5th of December, 1863, General Garfield took his scat 
in the Thirty-Eighth Congress. The reader who has gone 
over the preceding chapter will know in part what brought him 
there, and will be prepared to judge what was expected of him. 
But in order clearly to understand what actually was to be looked 
for from this Congressional neophyte, it will be of advantage to 
consider wAc sent Garfield to the House. Congressmen generally 
represent their districts; and a people may not unfairly be judged 
by their average representation in Congress. 

What kind of a constituency, then, was that Avhich, for nine 
times the space that measures the term of a Congressman, and an 
equal number of times the space that measures the political life 
of many a Congressman, kept James A. Garfield in that place 
without a moment's intermission? We would probably make no 
mistake if we should describe them from our knowledge of him. 
But let us take the mathematician's method and verify our conclu- 
sion by a reverse process. 

Twelve counties in the north-eastern corner of the State of Ohio 
are popularly grouped together and called the Western Reserve. 
They are the very Canaan of that great commonwealth; or, at 
least, come so near it that they can be described as a land flow- 
ing with wine and milk, — for grape culture is one of their im- 
portant industries, and their dairies are famous. Of the nearly 
twenty-five million pounds of cheese annually produced in Ohio, 
ninety-five per cent, is made in the Western Reserve. 

The Greeks had a story that their god Jupiter, when an infant, 



168 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

was tumbled down from the heavens to a sechided place on earth, 
where he was carefully watched while he grew. It shall be our 
easy task to show that the Western Reserve is a good place for a 
public man to grow in and make preparation to rule in a higher 
sphere. 

The Reserve is a place of great natural resources, and, under 
almost any conditions, would have a well-to-do population. But 
it is not advantages of this kind which make it an unusually good 
place for the growth of a great man. If we should presume to say 
so, all the facts of history would rise to protest its falsity. The arts 
and literature and eloquence and political glory of Athens and 
her sister states clung close to barren hill-sides. Switzerland rose 
to be the first free state of Europe among the Avild fastnesses of 
her unfertile mountains. The American Revolution was fought 
out and the Union established by the finest generation of states- 
men and warriors ever produced on the continent, before the ex- 
tent or the wealth of our broad, level empire was dreamed of. 
Xew England and Virginia were not rich ; but they were great, 
and they were free, and so were their statesmen in those days. 

The Western Reserve was largely settled by people of New En- 
gland. And, since it is not the character of the soil, but the com- 
position of the people, which chiefly influences the man who grows 
there, it will be ^jrofitable to see of what sort these settlers and 
their descendants were. 

One of the first things the first settlers of the Western Reserve 
did was to build a church. They brought the plan of their 
altars with them. Religion was the corner-stone of their new 
civilization. Religion was the solid rock on which they built a 
high morality and an earnest intelligence. Somehow or other 
they rested calmly on a God who made the forest his temple, and 
^yalked through it with them to the very end of the earth. They 
have their religion with. them to this day, and it seems to round 
•out their lives to a fuller completeness, and gives them solidity of 
oharpcter, and with its divinely sanctioned maxims creates such a 
standard of morality as a good man would aspire to to make his 
■rule of life. This kind of community is a good place in which 



IN THE ASCENDANT.— THE WESTERN KESEEVE. 169 

to grow a public man, if you want liim to hold fast to principle 
unchangeably at all times. 

The very next thing after a church, when this district was set- 
tled, came the common school. The race of which the settlers 
came was brainy. Their families always had more than a thim- 
bleful of sense apiece. Hence the demand for education, and, 
therefore, a school-house and a school-teacher. These schools 
have grown and multiplied. The Reserve has not only common- 
schools, but colleges, which are already first-class, and are des- 
tined to become famous seats of learning. The nation itself has 
come to recognize in the people of the Reserve a higher average 
of intelligence than exists anywhere in the Union, except in a 
very few sections. Here is a very good place to seek for a public 
man who shall have the kind of intellect to grapple with great 
questions of statesmanship, and master them. 

The Reserve was first peopled by a set of men who were not 
only religious, moral, and intelligent; but who possessed in them- 
selves two requisites of a great people — courage and strength. 
Their own ancestors had braved untold dangers in coming to the 
American shores, and had endured hardships and privations in- 
numerable to gain a footing on the rocky coast. Upborne by the 
tradition of these experiences, the pilgrimage and the work of 
founding a new State had been gone over by them again. They 
were a race who sailed unknown seas, climbed unexplored mount- 
ains to get into a new country, and cut down a primeval forest. 
Their descendants would be neither pigmies nor poltroons. This 
would certainly be a fine place for the production of a statesman 
who would have the courage to stand by his convictions and the 
power to successfully push his measures through. 

The political institutions and political habits of this people de- 
serve consideration. They brought their ideas of how to con- 
struct and conduct a State from New England, wdiere the town is 
a political unit, and the town-meeting a great event. So, from 
the very earliest time, the Reserve has been a region where every 
body was personally interested in public affairs. They put a man 
in office because they thought, on actual investigation, that he was 



170 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

equal to its duties. And, more than that, they held their appoint- 
ees to strict account. The unfortunate man who proved incapable 
or dishonest never got their support again, and never heard the 
last of their censures. These causes have made their political his- 
tory good reading. Its chapters are pure and strong and healthy. 

The Nineteenth Congressional District of Ohio, at the time of 
Garfield's election, included six counties — Portage, Ashtabula, 
Lake, Geauga, Trumbull, and ISIahoning. They are the eastern 
half of the Western Reserve. Before Garfield's first election this 
district had been represented for many years by Joshua R. Gid- 
dings, one of the ablest antislavery leaders of the period just be- 
fore the war. 

In 1858, Giddings was displaced. Overconfidcnce in his hold 
on the people had made him. a little reckless, and an ambitious 
politician took advantage of the opportunity, xi flaw, very slight 
indeed, was searched out in Giddings's record. It was proved 
that his mileage fees were in excess of what the shortest route 
to Washington required. He had made the people pay his ex- 
penses to New York. The convention having been skillfully 
worked up on this peccadillo of its old favorite, a Mr. Ilutchius 
was sent to Congress in his stead. 

A little time only was required to display the difference between 
Mr. Ilutchins and his predecessor. Mr. Giddings was requested 
at the next election to return. But that old patriot had been re- 
warded by the Government with a consulate at Montreal, and pre- 
ferred to remain there; which he did until his death in 18G4. In 
this situation the people of the Nineteenth District began to 
search for a man who could represent them according to their de- 
sire. They felt that it Mas due to themselves and to the Nation 
that they send to Congress a leader; some man with ability and 
force sufficient to deal with the great questions of the day, and 
solve the problems of the war. 

At such a time as this, all eyes turned to the brilliant young 
General, James A. Garfield. His legislative abilities had been 
tested in the Ohio legislature just before the war, and his record 
there was an assurance of his fitness. He was a scholarly man ; a 



IN THE ASCEXDAXT.— EFA'IEW OF COXGEESSES. 171 

forcible speaker; and one whose experience in the field was not 
only honorable to himself, but gave him a knowledge of military 
affairs which would be exceedingly useful in the condition of na- 
tional affairs at that time. The election occurred in 1862, more 
than a year before the man elected could take his place. The 
war, they supposed, would be over by that time, so that Garfield's 
service in the field would not be left incomplete. He Avas himself 
a perfect illustration of his own saying, "Be fit for more than the 
thing you arc now doing." And thus it happened that, without 
the least expression of such a desire. General Garfield was sent to 
Congress by the general and hearty wishes of his constituents. 

Now into what kind of an arena was it that these people sent 
their champion to stand for them? What was its composition, and 
what had been its character in past times? In answering these 
questions, we are helped by an article written by Garfield for the 
Atlantic Montldy of July, 1877, wherein he says: 

"The limits of this article will not allf)\v ine to notice the changes in 
manners and methods in Congress since the administration of the elder 
Adaips. Such a review would brini^ before us many striking characters 
and many stirring scenes. 

"In the long line of those who have occupied seats in Congress, we 
should see, here and there, rising above the undistinguished mass, the 
figures of those great men whose lives and labors have made their country 
illustrious, and whose influence upon its destiny will be felt for ages to 
come. We should see that group of great statesmen whom the last war 
with England brought to public notice, among whom were Ames and 
Randolph, Clay and Webster, Calhoun and Benton, Wrigl)t an<l Prentiss, 
making their era famous by their statesmanship, and creating and de- 
stroying political parties by their fierce antagonisms. We should see the 
folly and barbarism of the so-called code of honor, destroying noblemen 
in the fatal meadow of Bladensburgh. We should see the spiiit of lib- 
erty awaking the conscience of the nation to the sin and danger of slav- 
ery, whose advocates had inherited and kept alive the old anarchic spirit 
of disunion. We should trace the progress of that great struggle from 
the days when John Quincy Adams stood in the House of Representa- 
tives, like a lion at bay, defending the sacred right of petition; when, 
after his death, Joshua R. Giddings continued the good fight, standing 



172 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

at this post for twenty years, his white locks, like the plume of Henry 
of Navarre, always showhig where the battle for freedom raged most 
fiercely; when his small baud in Congress, reinforced by Hale and 
Sumner, Wade and Chase, Lovejoy and Stevens, continued the struggle 
amid the most turbulent scenes; when daggers were brandished and pis- 
tols were drawn in the halls of Congress; and, later, when, one by one, 
the senators and representatives of eleven States, breathing defiance and 
uttering maledictions upon the Union, resigned their seats and left the 
Capitol to take up arms against their country. We should see the Con- 
gress of a people long unused to war, when confronted by a supreme 
danger, raising, equipping, and supporting an army greater than all the 
armies of Napoleon and Wellington combined : meeting the most diffi- 
cult questions of international and constitutional law ; and, by new forms 
of taxation, raising a revenue which, in one year of the war, amounted 
to more than all the national taxes collected during the first half century 
of the Government." ' 

All this we should sec, and more. And it was to help com- 
plete the gigantic tasks of Congress during this momentous time 
that Garfield was sent there. The House of Representatives con- 
tained manv able men, but most of these belonged to a closing pe- 
riod. They had grown up in opposition, not in administration. 
A new group of men was now about to take the lead, and recon- 
struct the Union on a foundation whose corner-stone should be 
Union and Liberty, instead of Slavery and State Rights. The 
old generation of leaders were still there with their wisdom and 
valuable experience; but the spirit of a new era now came in, 
which should outlive Thaddeus Stevens and his compeers. About 
this time there came into Congress, Blaine and Boutwell and 
Conkling and — Garfield, destined to do more than any of them in 
restoring prosperity, peace, public justice, and, above all, a har- 
monious Union, which this age shall not again see broken. 

The usefulness of a legislator has in all times been popularly 
ascribed to his work in the open assembly. But this was never 
wholly true, and in no existing legislature in the world is it even 
half true at this day. Public business of this sort is so vast and 
so complicated that no assembly can give it all a fair considera- 
tion. To remedy this trouble we have the committee system, 



IX THE ASCENDANT.— OX THE MILITARY COMMITTEE, 173 

wlierebv special study by a few informs the many -who rely upon 
their reports and merely pass upon their recommendations, 

A member of Congress can not be judged by the figure he presents 
on the floor of the House. He may say nothing there, and yet be 
author of important measures the mere public advocacy of which 
is making some other man a national reputation. James A. Gar- 
field Mas, from the first of his Congressional career, a leader in 
debate; but the story would be only half told if mention Avcrc 
omitted of the Avonderful industry displayed by him on the vari- 
ous great committees where his abilities gave liim place. 

When the Thirty-Eighth Congress opened, the war was not yet 
ended — a fact Avhich many an utterer of unfulfilled prophecy and 
many a broken heart deplored. The most important committee 
of all was still the Military Committee. It was composed as fol- 
lows : Ptobcrt C. Schenck, of Ohio ; John F. FarasAvorth, of Illi- 
nois; George H. Yeaman, of Kentucky; James A. Garfield, of 
Ohio ; Benjamin Loan, of Missouri ; Moses F. Odcll, of Xew 
York; Henry C. Deming, of Connecticut; F. AV. Kellogg, of 
Micliigan ; Archibald ^IcAllistcr, of Pennsylvania. 

Although Garfield's name comes fourth here, he really was in- 
tended as second by the Chairman. Mr. Schenck had requested 
Speaker Colfax to put him on, under a belief that he would be 
an invaluable help to himself. "We have been several times re- 
quired to notice a happy faculty which Garfield had of inspiring 
the faith in himself of those with whom he came in contact, by 
some striking act which showed them that he was not an ordinary 
man. This was not intentional, but simply the spontaneous shin- 
ing forth of light which was in the man. Almost the first session 
of the Committee on Military' AflTairs brought out just such an 
incident : 

It had then been only a short time since the science of anaes- 
thetics had grown into some importance by the use of chloroform 
and ether. In the hospitals of the army it was very common. 
As is usual with inventions and discoveries, there Avas a struggle 
going on for the profit and honor of the discovery. Dr. Morton, 
a dentist, and others, were petitioning Congress, each as the dis- 



174 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

covcrcr of chloroform, for some kind of appropriation or arrange- 
ment by which they might be rewarded for the services they had 
done lor our soklicrs in thus alleviating their sufferings. The 
petitions were referred to this committee. The members all, ex- 
cept Garfield, declined to investigate it, on the ground that they 
knew nothing about such an obscure topic. Garfield only ob- 
served that he thou<i;ht the claim remarkable. Not knowinc; what 
else to do, the Chairman referred it to him, expecting not to hear 
of it again. 

At the next meeting he had a scientific and thoroughly written 
report ready, exhausting the whole subject. On request, the mat- 
ter was explained. Garfield had a way of supplementing his reg- 
ular line of studies by having always some unusual and out-of-the- 
way topic on hand to amuse his leisure hours. Not long before 
this he had accidentally come across a book on ana3sthcsia, and 
his investigations had made him ready for the unforeseen report 
in committee. All knowledge is useful. After this the committee 
was not afraid of strange topics. They were given over to the man 
who knew ancesthesia, and then they considered the subject set- 
tled. As one man said, — "Good Lord ! what would he not know?" 

General Garfield's time was now devoted to public business. 
Every subject likely to come before his committee M'as investi- 
gated through all the avenues of information. He set himself a 
wide course of reading on finance, on constitutional law, and a 
great grouji of kindred subjects. These were studied in the Gar- 
field way, which was to read all the literature he could find on a 
topic, or that could in any way affect the discussion* thereof It 
was this prodigious labor, matching his capacity for keeping the 
run of what would have overwhelmed most men with confusion, 
that made him at the same time a remarkably ready and a won- 
derfully reliable man, either in committee or as a speaker on the 
floor of the House. 

General Garfield had not been in Congress two weeks before 
his occasional brief statements began to attract attention. Of 
course it was not till after a considerable period that he became a 
recognized leader; but his force began to be felt very soon, and 



IN THE ASCENDANT.— THE BOUNTY QUESTION. 175 

grew every clay until, by steady development of his abilities and 
his influence, he finally reached the summit of power, as leader of 
his party in the Lower House of Congress. 

AVe have seen that he was not a politician in the popular meaning 
of the word. He had been sent to Congress rather against than with 
his inclinations, and was above posturing and plotting for reelection. 
Even after he had reluctantly given up his commission as Major- 
Gencral in the army, he was ready to return on call. In fact, he 
did once almost determine on going back. General Thomas, having 
succeeded Rosecrans in his command, wrote a private letter asking 
Garfield to accept the command of a corps in his army. The offer 
was tempting, and duty seemed to point the way. Mr. Lincoln, 
however, was having trouble to get his measures through Con- 
gress, and needed support. On his statement that Garfield would 
confer a personal favor by remaining where he was, the change 
was not made. 

This was not the kind of man to stultify himself for the sake 
of public favor; and therefore it is not surprising to find his 
first speech on record opposed to the whole House. It was on 
the '' Bounty Question." At this time in the war, volunteering 
had become so rare a thing that new measures had to be devised 
to = keep up the ever-dwindling ranks of the army. Two methods 
were advocated. One was to draft men forcibly, and put them 
into the service; the other was to induce men to volunteer by 
payment of a bonus for enlistment. Out of these two principles 
a hybrid policy had been formed, resulting in the Conscription 
Act, of March 3, 18G3. This act provided for a draft, but allowed 
a commutation in money, which was fixed at three hundred dol- 
lars. In addition, thirteen exceptions were allowed by which the 
draft could be escaped. To compensate for these losses, three hun- 
dred dollars bounty money was given to every raw recruit, and 
four hundred dollars to every reenlisted veteran. The result of all 
which was a rapidly decreasing army. The Government urged 
stronger measures ; and it was before these measures had been 
perfected that an incident occurred in which General Garfield first 
indicated his opinions on the subject. 



17G LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

According to a law passed, the bounties above mentioned could 
be paid only up to January 5, 18G4. On January 6th, the Military 
Committee reported a joint resolution to continue this limit over 
till ]\Iarch 1st. Mr. Garfield did not approve of the resolution, 
although every man in the House seemed against him. His rea- 
sons are given in the Congressional Globe, wherein the following 
is reported : 

Mr. Garfield. — "Mr. Speaker, I regret that I was not able to 
meet with the Military Committee when this resolution was under con- 
sideration. I did not reach the city until a few hours before the House 
met this morning ; but if I understand the matter correctly from the 
public journals, the request (if the President and the War Department 
was to continue the 2)ayment of bounties until the lit of February 
next; but the resolution before the House proposes to extend tlie pay- 
ment until the 1st of ]\Iarch. And while the President asks us to 
continue the payment of bounties to veteran volunteers only, the reso- 
lution extends it to all volunteers, whether veterans or raw recruits. 
If the resolution prevails, it seems to me we shall swamp the finances 
of the Go\ernment before the 1st of March arrives. I can not consent 
to a measure -which authorizes the expenditure of so vast a sum as 
wiU be expended under this resolution, unless it be shown absolutely 
indispensable to the work of filling up the army. I am anxious that 
veterans should volunteer, and that liberal bounties should be paid to 
them. But if we extend the payment to all classes of volunteers for 
two months to come, I fear we shall swamp the Government. 

"Before I vote for this resolution, I desire to know whether the Gov- 
ernment is determined to abandon the draft. If it be its policy to raise 
an army solely by volunteering and paying bounties, we have one line 
of policy to pursue. If the conscription law is to be any thing but a 
dead letter on the statnte book, our line of policy is a very different 
one. I ask the gentleman from Illinois to inform me what course is to 
be adopted. I am sorry to see in this resolution the indication of a timid 
and vascillating course. It is unworthy the dignity of our Govern- 
ment and our army to use tlie conscription act as a scarecrow, and the 
bounty system as a bait, to alternately scare and coax men into the army. 

"Let us give liberal bounties to veteran soldiers who may reeidist, 
and for raw recruits use the draft." 



IN THE ASCENDANT.— DISSATISFIED CONSTITUENTS. 177 

After some further discussion the vote was taken, resulting in 
}-eas 112, nays 2. Mr. Grinnell, of Iowa, made the second nega- 
tive, changing his vote after Garfield had voted. 

Soon afterwards a letter came to General Garfield, signed bv 
twenty of his constituents, censuring his action, and demanding 
his resignation. They were only answered that he held their let- 
ter, and that within a year they wonld all agree with what he had 
done. Before the year closed, there was a cross opposite each 
man's name, denoting the fulfilment of the General's prophecv. 

This action also attracted the admiring attention of Salmon P. 
Chase, who soon afterward congratulated him, but at the same time 
coupled his praises with a good piece of advice. ^Ir. Chase liked 
to see a man exhibit great firmness, but warned his young friend 
that such antagonism to his party would better be indulged spar- 
ingly. It would seem that the advice was unnecessary to Garfield, 
however, as he was not a factious man. He simply had the courage 
of his convictions. On this point we find that Garfield never fails 
to meet our expectations, no matter what the opposition : 

" But, like a rock unmoved, a rock that braves 
The raging tempest and the rising waves, 
Propp'd on himself, he stands." 

Legislation on the enrollment of soldiers was yet to come, Mdiich 
should be more severe than any we had known. The system of 
bounties proved a failure. AVe had attempted coercion on the 
States, and the only way to succeed was by further coercion of our 
own citizens. It was a hard tiling to come to, and the people were 
unwilling. Congressmen were afraid of the coming fall election 
of 1864. Finally, early in June, Mr. Lincoln sought an interview 
with the Alilitary Committee. He told them that the army had 
in it only three-quarters of a million men ; three hundred and eighty 
thousand were within a few months of the end of their term of 
service. These places must be filled, and a law framed for the ])ur- 
pose at once. The committee expressed its opinion of the political 
danger : " Mr. Lincoln, such a law will defeat you for President." 
Then a light shone out from that great homely countenance, the 



178 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

tall form was drawn grandly to its full height, as the answer was 
given. Mr. Lincoln said that his business was to put down the 
Rebellion, no matter w^hat the danger. Grant and Sherman were 
on the verge of victory ; their strength must be kept up, and the 
struggle ended quickly. 

Accordingly, a bill was prepared after the President's own plan. 
Many of the draft exemptions of the existing law Avere taken away 
by it ; commutation-money was no longer to be received, and every 
possible facility Avas to be afforded for compelling men to enlist. 
But peace Democrats, united Avith coAvardly Congressmen of the 
Hepublican party, together voted out the most effectiA^e clauses of 
the new bill. 

This Avould ncA^er do. The friends of the bill reconstructed it, 
and determined to put it through. On the 21st of June, the effort 
AA'as made. General Garfield Avas, perhaps, more intensely Avrought 
up on the subject, than any man except Lincoln; and he made a 
great speech, a speech replete Avith learning, logic, and eloquence. 
This bill Avas the result of conditions in national affairs Avhich he 
had long foreseen ; he had prophesied, at the time of his A'ote 
against extending bounties, that the end of such extension Avould 
be ruin to the Union cause. That ruin Avas noAV impending, and 
all his energies Avere bent toAA'ard averting the evil. Hear this 
closing appeal : 

. "I ask gentlemen who opjiose this repeal, why they desire to make it 
easy for citizens to escape from military duty ? Is it a great liardship 
to serve one's country? Is it a disgraceful service? Will you, by your 
action here, say to the soldiers in the field, 'This is a disreputable busi- 
ness ; you have been deceived ; you have been caught in a trap, and Ave 
Avill make no laAV to put any body else in it'? Do you thus treat your 
soldiers in the field? They are proud of their voluntary service, and if 
there be one Avish of the army paramount to all others, one message 
more earnest than all the others wliich they send back to you, it is tliat 
you will aid in filling up their battle-thinned ranks by a draft Avhich 
Avill compel lukewarm citizens Avho prate against the Avar to go into the 
field. They ask that you Avill not expend large bounties in paying men 
of third-rate patriotism, while they went with no other bounty than iheir 



IN THE ASCENDANT.— SPEECH UPON CONFISCATION. 179 

love of country, to which they gave their young lives a free offering, but 
that you will compel these eleventh-hour men to take their chances in 
the field beside them. Let us grant their request, and, by a steady and 
persistent eflfort, we shall, in the end, be it near or remote, be it in one 
year or ten, crown the nation with victory and enduring peace." 

In the sequel, this bill passed; a grand reinforcement of five 
hundred thousand men soon secured the supremacy of the Union, 
and Father Abraham was thus enabled to finish his immortal 
work. 

Early in the first session of the Thirty-Eighth Congress, the 
subject of confiscation was pretty thoroughly discussed. House 
Resolution No. IS^vas offered, so amending a resolution of the 
preceding Congress that no punishment or proceeding under it 
should be so construed as to make a forfeiture of the estate of 
the offender, except during his life. Out of this little motion there 
grew a great crop of controversy, and among others. General 
Garfield took part. His main speech, the first lengthy address he 
ever made in Congress, was delivered on January 28, 1864. Mr. 
Finck, of Ohio, had just sat down at the close of a long set 
speech, when Garfield arose and began in these words: 

"Mr. Speaker, I had not intended to ask the attention of the House 
or to occupy its time on this question of confiscation at all, but some 
things have been said, touching its military aspects, which make it proper 
for me to trespass upon the patience of the House. Feeling that, in some 
small degree, I represent on this floor the Army of the Republic, I am 
the more emboldened to speak to this subject before us. 

"I have been surprised that in so lengthy and able a discussion, so 
little reference has been made to the merits of the resolution itself. In 
the wide range of discussion, the various theories of the legal and polit- 
ical status of the rebellious States have been examined. It is, perhaps, 
necessary that we take ground upon that question, as preliminary to the 
discussion of the resolution itself. Two theories, widely differing from 
each other, have been proposed; but I can not consider either of them as 
wholly correct. I can not agree with the distinguished gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Stevens,) who acknowledges that these States are out 
of the Union, and now constitute a foreign people ; nor can I, on the 



180 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

other liand, agree with those who believe that the insurgent States are 
not only in the Union, but have lost none of their rights under the Con- 
stitution and laws of the Union, 

"When the Government of the United States declared that we were 
in a state of war, the rebel States came under the laws of war. By their 
acts of rebellion and war, they had swept away every vestige of their 
civil and political rights under the Constitution of the United States. 
Their obligations still remained; but the reciprocal rights, which usually 
accompany obligations, they had forfeited. 

"The question then lies open before us: In a state of war, under the 
laws of war, is this resolution legal and politic ? I insist, Mr. Speaker, 
that the question involved iu the resolution before this House, is whether 
this Government, in its exercise of its rights of a' belligerent under the 
laws of war, can not punish these rebels and confiscate their estates, both 
personal and real, for life and forever. That is the only question 
before us. 

"I conclude by returning once more to the resolution before us. Let 
no weak sentiments of misplaced sympathy deter us from inaugurating a 
measure, which will cleanse our nation and make it the fit home of free- 
dom and glorious manhood. Let us not despise the severe wisdom of 
our revolutionary fathers when they served their generation in a similar 
way. Let the Republic drive from its soil the traitors that have con- 
spired against its life, as God and His angels drove Satan and his host 
from heaven. He was not too merciful to be just, and to hurl down in 
chains and everlasting darkness the 'traitor angel' >vho rebelled against 
Him." 

In these clear words we may find already a development of that 
independent, yet ahvays moderate way of regarding things wbich 
no reader of Garfield's great speeches of later date can fail to 
notice. While other men wasted time in reasoning on the words 
of the Constitution, and their efiPect on the status of the Southern 
States, this incisive intellect cut right through all extremes, and 
from a plain view of the facts, he said that the South was not out 
of the Union ; and although it was in the Union, it did not have 
" the reciprocal rights which usually accompany obligations." And 
this was statesmanship. 



IN THE ASCENDANT.-SPEECH OF THE SESSION. 181 

In March, 1864, the Committee on Military Affairs reported 
a bill "to declare certain roads military roads, and j^ost roads, and 
to regulate commerce." Its principal object, as far as the Gov- 
ernment was concerned, was to enlarge its facilities of communi- 
cation between Washington, Philadelphia, and New York. The 
only existing postal route between the commercial Capital and 
the political Capital, was by the Camden and Amboy Railroad. 
This bill was presented on petition of the Raritan and Delaware 
Bay Railroad Company, asking that it be given similar rights to 
those held by the Camden and Amboy; which latter road of 
course used all its influence to defeat the measure. Both the 
power and the duty of Congress to pass the bill were violently 
assailed and denied. 

Mr. Garfield favored its passage, and made a speech on the sub- 
ject which ran through parts of two days, March 24 and 31. 
This address was very powerful, and Mas called by some mem- 
bers " the speech of the session." 

The main question, as raised by the friends of that road them- 
selves, was whether Congress could rightfully interfere with a 
State railroad monopoly which did not confine its operations 
within the limits of that State. The Governor of Xew Jersey had 
issued a proclamation referring to this matter, and speaking of his 
State as "sovereign." These were but the first mutterings of a 
great storm which was to follow. Their significance was recog- 
nized. 

It was to these points that Mr. Garfield addressed himself. The 
Camden and Amboy Company he named as a sweeping and com- 
plete monopoly, made so by the State of Xew Jersey. The State's 
right to create corporations was undoubted. But it could have 
no sovereignty sufficient to destroy the power of the United States, 
and especially so outside of the State limits. Equal rights v>-ith 
this monopoly should be given to the Raritan and Delaware Bay 
Company at any time on petition, and certainly now when the fa- 
cilities for transportation were not equal to the needs of the Gov- 
ernment. 



182 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

Surely the Government, at such a time as this, had paramount 
authority to provide for its own necessities. 

On the 8th of April, 1864, the House of Representatives re- 
solved itself into the Committee of the Whole upon the State of 
the Union, whereupon Mr. Alexander Long, of Cincinnati, Ohio, 
took the floor, and, in a speech of much bitterness, arraigned the 
administration, not for its conduct of the war, but for carrying on 
the war at all. ''An unconstitutional war can only he carried on in 
an uncondituiional manner,''^ said Mr. Long. His demand now 
was for peace. This was the first sound of Democratic prepara- 
tion for the Presidential election, the key-note of their camjjaign. 

Mr. Long said ; 

"Mr. Chairman, I speak to-day for the preservation of the Govern- 
ment, lu the independence of a representative of the people I intend to 
proclaim the deliberate convictions gf my judgment in this fearful hour 
of the country's peril. 

" The brief period of three short years has produced a fearfni change 
in this free, happy, and prosperous government, — so pure in its restrain- 
ments upon personal liberty, and so gentle in its demands upon the re- 
sources of the people, that the celebrated Humboldt, after traveling 
through the country, on his return to Europe said, 'The American j^eople 
have a government wln'ch you neither see nor feel.' So different is it 
now, and so gre:it tlie change, that the inquiry might well be made 
to-day, ' Are we not in Constantinople, in St. Petersburg, in Vienna, in 
Rome, or in Paris?' Military governors and their provost mai-shals over- 
ride the laws, and the echo of the armed heel rings forth as clearly now 
in America as in France or Austria ; and the President sits to-day guarded 
by armed soldiei-s at every approach leading to the Executive IMansiou. 
So far from crushing tlie rebellion, three years have passed away, and 
from the day on which the conflict began, up to the present hour, 
the Confederate army has not been forced beyond the sound of their guns 
from the dome of the Capitol in which we arc assembled," 

The remainder of the speech continued in the same spirit. The 
war could not be put down. Moreover, it was wrong and ought 
not to be put down : 

' ' Can the Union be restored by war ? I answer most unhesitatingly 



IN THE ASCENDANT.— A FIRE IN THE REAR. 183 

and deliberately : No, never. War is final and eternal separation. My 
first and higiiest ground against its further prosecution is, that it is mwig. 
It is a violation of the Constitution and of the fundamental principles on 
which this Union was founded. My second objection is, that as a policy, 
it is not reconstructive, but destructive, and will, if continued, result speed- 
ily in the destruction of the Government and the loss of civil liberty, to 
both tlie North and the South, and it ought therefore to immediately 



on- 



These were the sentiments of a Democratic politician in Cc 
gress; they would be scattered broadcast over the whole laud. 
Some of the arguments were specious ; they would be echoed from a 
thousand platforms during the summer. It was incumbent on the 
opposition to furnish a speedy and strong reply. When Mr. Long 
took his seat, Mr. Garfield arose and said : 

"Mr. Chairman: I should be obliged to you if you would direct the 
sergeant-at-arms to bring a white flag and plant it in the aisle between 
myself and my colleague who has just addressed you. 

"I recollect on one occasion when two great armies stood face to face, 
that under a white flag just planted, I approached a company of men 
dressed in the uniform of the rebel Confederacy, and reached out my 
hand to one of the number, and told him I respected him as a brave 
man. Though he wore the emblems of disloyalty and treason, still, un- 
derneath his vestments I beheld a brave and honest soul. 

"I would produce that scene here this afternoon. I say, were there 
such a flag of truce— but God forbid me if I should do it under any 
other circumstances— I would reach out this right hand and ask that 
gentleman to take it; because I honor his bravery and his honesty. I 
believe what has just fallen from his lips are the honest sentiments of 
his heart, and in uttering it he has made a new epoch in the history of 
this war; he has done a new thing under the sun; he has done a brave 
thing. It is l)raver than to face cannon and musketry, and I honor him 
for his candor and frankness. 

"But now, I ask you to take away the flag of truce; and I will go 
back inside the Union lines and speak of what he has done. I am re- 
muided by it of a distinguished character in Paradise Lost. When he 
had rebelled against the glory of God, and ' led away a third i^art of 



184 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

heaven's sons, conjured against the Highest;' when, after terrible battles 
in which mountains and hills were hurled down 'nine times the space 
that measures day and night,' and after the terrible fall lay stretched 
prone on the burning lake,— Satan lifted up his shattered bulk, crossed 
the abyss, looked down into Paradise, and, soliloquizing, said : 

'"Which wa-y Ifly is hell, myself am hell;' 

it seems to me in that utterance he expressed the very sentiments to 
which you have just listened; uttered by one not less brave, malign, and 
fallen. This man gathers up the meaning of this great contest, the 
philosophy of the moment, the prophecies of the hour, and, in sight of 
the .paradise of victory and peace, utters them all in this wail of terrible 
despair, ' Which way I fly is hell.' He ought to add, ' Myself am hell.' 

"For the first time in the history of this contest, it is proposed in this 
hall to give up the struggle, to abandon the war, and let treason run 
riot through the land ! I will, if I can, dismiss feeling from my heart 
and try to consider only what beiirs upon the logic of the speech to which 
we have just listened. 

" First of all, the gentleman tells us that the right of secession is a 
constitutional right. I do not propose to enter into the argument. I 
have hitherto expressed myself on State sovereignty and State rights, 
of which this proposition of his is the legitimate child. 

" But the gentleman takes higher ground — and in that I agree with 
him, namely, that five million or eight million people possess the right 
of revolution, (irant it; we agree there. If fifty-nine men can make a 
revolution successful, they have the right of revolution. If one State 
wishes to break its connection with the Federal Government, and does it 
by force, maintaining itself, it is an independent State. If the eleven 
Southern States are resolved and determined to leave the Union, to se- 
cede, to revolutionize, and can maintain that revolution by force, they 
have revolutionary right to do so. I stand on that platform with the 
gentleman. 

"And now the question comes, is it our constitutional duty to let tlieni 
do it ? That is the question. And in order to reach it, I beg to call 
your attention, not to argument, but to the condition of afflvirs that 
would result from such action — the mere statement of which becomes 
the strongest possible argument. What does this gentleman propose? 
Where will he draw the line of division? If the rebels carry into seces- 



IN THE ASCENDANT.- THE EFTUKN SHOT. 185 

sion what thev desire to carry; if their revolution envelops as many States 
as they intend it shall envelop; if they draw the line where Isham G. 
Harris, the rebel governor of Tennessee, in the rebel camp near our lines, 
told Mr. Vallandigham they would draw it, — along the line of the Ohio 
and Potomac, — if they make good their statement to him, that they will 
never consent to any other line, then I ask, what is the thing the gen- 
tleman proposes to do? 

"He proposes to leave to the United States a territory reaching from 
the Atlantic to the Pacific, and one hundred miles wide in the center! 
From Wellsville on the Ohio to Cleveland on the lakes, is one hundred 
miles. I ask you, Mr. Chairman, if there be a man here so insane as to 
suppose that the American people will allow their magnificent national 
proportions to be shorn to so deformed a shape as tiiis? 

"Suppose the policy of the gentleman were adopted to-day. Let the 
order go forth ; sound the 'recall' on your bugles, and let it ring from 
Texas to the far Atlantic, and tell the armies to come back. Call the 
victorious legions back over the battle-field of blood forever now dis- 
graced. Call them back over the territory which they have conquered. 
Call them back, and let the minions of secession chase them with deri- 
sion and jeers as they come. And then tell them that the man across 
the aisle, from the free State of Ohio, gave birth to the monstrous 
j)roposition. 

"Mr. Chairman, if such a word should be sent forth through the 
armies of the Union, the wave of terrible vengeance that would sweep 
back over this land could never find a parallel in the records of history. 
Almost in the moment of final victory, the 'recall' is sounded by a 
craven people not desiring freedom. "We ought, every man, to be made 
a slave should we sanction such a sentiment. 

"The gentleman has told us there is no such thing as coercion justifi- 
able under the Constitution. I ask him for one moment to reflect, that 
no statute ever was enforced without coercion. It is the basis of every 
law in the universe, — God's law as well as man's. A law is no law with- 
out coercion behind it. When a man has murdered his brother, coercion 
takes the murderer, tries him, and hangs him. When you levy your 
taxes, coercion secures their collection ; it fi^llows the shadow of the thief 
and brings him to justice; it accompanies your diplomacy to foreign 
courts, and backs a declaration of the nation's right by a pledge of the 
nation's power. Again, he tells us that oatlis taken under the amnesty 



186 . LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

proclamation are good for nothing. The oath of Galileo was not binding 
upon him. I am reminded of another oath that was taken; but perhaps 
it was an oath on the lips alone to which the heart made no response. 

'• I remember to have stood in a line of nineteen men on that carpet 
yonder on the first day of the session, and I remember that another oath 
was passed round and each member signed it as provided by law, utterly 
repudiating the rebellion and its pretenses. Does that gentleman not 
blush to speak of Galileo's oath? Was not his own its counterpart? 

" He says that the Union can never be restored because of the terri- 
ble hatred engendered by the war. To prove it, he quotes what some 
Southern man said a few years ago, that he knew no hatred between 
people in the world like that between the North and the South. And 
yet that North and South have been one nation for eighty-eight years ! 

" Have we seen in this contest any thing more bitter than the Avars 
of the Scottish border ? Have we seen any thing more bitter than those 
terrible feuds in the days of Edward, Avhen England and Scotland were 
the deadliest foes on earth ? And yet for centuries those countries have 
been cemented in an indissoluble union that has made the British nation 
one of the proudest of the earth ! 

" I said a little Avhile ago that I accepted the proposition of the gen- 
tleman that rebels had a right of revolution ; and the decisive issue 
between us and the rebellion is, whether they shall revolutionize and 
<lestroy, or we shall subdue and preserve. We take the latter ground. 
AVe take the common weapons of war to meet them ; and if these be 
not sufficient, I would take any element which Avill overwhelm and 
destroy ; I would sacrifice the dearest and best beloved ; I would take 
all the old sanctions of law and the Constitution and fling them to the 
winds, if necessary, rather than let the nation be broken in pieces and 
its people destroyed with endless ruin. 

"What is the Constitution that these gentlemen are perpetually fling- 
ing in our faces whenever we desire to strike hard blows ngainst the 
rebellion ? It is the production of the American people. They made 
it ; and the creator is mightier than the creature. The power which 
made the Constitution can also make other instruments to do its great 
work in the day of dire necessity." 

The Presidential campaign of 1864 involved, in its tremendous 
issues, the fate of a Republic. All the forces which had ever an- 



IN THE ASCEXDAXT.— THE WADE-DAVIS MANIFESTO. 187 

tagonized the war for the Union were arrayed on the one side ; 
those which demanded that the war be vigorously pursued until 
rebellion was forever put down, withstood them on the other side. 
It was a hand-to-hand struggle. Garfield took the stump and ably 
advocated the Republican cause. He traveled nearly eight thou- 
sand miles, and made sixty-five speeches. Late in the season his 
constituents met to nominate a Congressman. Garfield was very 
popular in the district, which had been pleased with his ability 
and the patriotic spirit of his conduct. 

But, after the adjournment of Congress, an incident occurred 
which caused trouble in the Republican ranks, and seemed likely 
to drive him out of the field. The subject of the readmission 
of conquered Southern States to the full enjoyment of their politi- 
cal rights, had oceuj)ied the attention of the Thirty-Eighth Con- 
gress ; and that body, on the day of its adjournment, had passed and 
sent for the President's approval, a bill providing for the govern- 
ment of such States. Mr. Lincoln had let the bill go over un- 
signed till after adjournment; and soon issued a proclamation 
referring to the subject, which offended many of the friends of 
the bill. Among these were Ben. Wade and Winter Davis, who 
issued to the public a reply to Mr. Lincoln, censuring him in very 
severe language. The President was therein charged with favor- 
ing a policy subversive of human liberty, unjust to the friends of 
the administration, and dangerous to the Republic. This Wade- 
Davis manifesto caused a great furore of excitement. Wade and 
Davis were denounced ; the people would hear nothing against 
Mr. Lincoln. 

When the convention met at Warren, Mr. Garfield was sent 
for. He had been charged by some with the authorship of the 
Wade-Davis paper, and by many Math holding to its views. When 
he appeared before them, the chairman stated to him the charge, 
with a strong intimation that if he cared for a renomination he 
must declare war against all disagreement with the President's 
policy. 

Then the young general and statesman arose, and stepped far- 
ward to face the assembly. They listened to hear their former 



188 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAKFIELD. 

hero explain away the terrible opinion attributed to him, and, like 
(he fawning politician he was not, trim his sails according to the 
popular pleasure. 

jSIr. Garfield said that he was not the author of the manifesto 
which the chairman had mentioned. Only of late had he read 
that great protest. But, having read, he approved ; and only re- 
gretted that there had been any necessity for such a thing. The 
facts alleged were truly asserted. This w^as his belief. If they 
prefeiTcd a representative not of the same mind as himself, they 
ehould by all means hasten to nominate their man. 

Having somewhat haughtily spoken these brave words, Garfield 
took his hat and strode out, with the intention of returning to his 
hotel. As he reached the street, a great shout was heard. " That 
sound, no doubt, means my defeat and another's nomination," he 
muttered- But, with nothing to regret, he went his way. 

Meanwhile, what did the convention actually do ? They were 
dumb with astonishment for a moment ; a licroic deed had been 
done before them, and admiration for the chief actor was the up- 
permost sentiment in every heart. Then a young man from Ash- 
tabula called out: "Mr. Chairman, I say that the man who has 
courage enough to oppose a convention like that ought not to be 
discarded. I move that James A. Garfield be nominated by ac- 
clamation." Without a dissenting voice it was done. When elec- 
tion day came, his majority was nearly twelve thousand. 

The session of Congress which met in December of 1<S()4 was 
marked by the great debates on the Thirteenth Amendment to the 
Constitution, which was presented to the States for ratification on 
the first of February, 1865. Perhaps the strongest opposition to 
that amendment was from George H. Pendleton, of Ohio. He 
spoke against it on the 13th of January. The chief argument was 
that purely State institutions could not properly be interfered with 
by the Nation, without the consent of the State or States concerned. 
That this right of a State was reserved in the spirit of the Con- 
stitution, just as equal representation in the Senate was secured, 
beyond recall, by the letter of that instrument. 

To this speech Mr. Garfield made a reply. So much of this 



IN THE ASCENDANT.— DENOUNCES SLAVERY, 189 

reply as touched upon the constitutional power of making such an 
amendment may be given further on ; the remainder is such a de- 
nunciation of slavery, as an institution, as has rarely been equaled 
by any of those eloquent men why devoted their lives to its ex- 
termination. 

On taking the floor, Mr. Garfield began : 

" il/r. Speaker: Vie shall never know why slavery dies so hard in this 
Republic and in this hall till we know why sin is long-lived and Satan 
is immortal. Witli marvelous tenacity of existence, it has outlived the 
expectations of its friends and the hoj^es of its enemies. It has been de- 
clared here and elsewhere to be in the several stages of mortality — 
wounded, moribund, dead. The question was raised by my colleague 
[Mr. Cox] yesterday whetlier it was indeed dead, or only in a troubled 
sleep. I know of no better illustration of its condition than is found in 
Sallust's admirable history of the great conspirator, Catiline, who, when 
his final battle was fought and lost, his army broken and scattered, was 
found, far in advance of his own troops, lying among the dead enemies 
of Rome, yet breathing a little, but exhibiting in his countennnce all tlie 
ferocity of spirit which had characterized his life. So, sir, this body of 
slavery lies before us among the dead enemies of the Republic, mortally 
wounded, impotent in its fiendish wickedness, but with its old ferocity of 
look, bearing the unmistakable marks of its infernal origin. 

" Who does not remember that thirty years ago — a short period in the 
life of a nation— but little could be said with impunity in these halls on 
the subject of slavery? We can hardly realize that this is the same peo- 
ple and these the same halls, where now scarcely a man can be found 
who will venture to do more than filter out an apology for slavery, pro- 
testing in the same breath that he has no love for the dying tyrant. 
None, I believe, but that man of more than supernal boldness, from the 
city of New York [jNIr. Fernando Wood], has ventured, this session, to 
raise his voice in favor of slavery for its own sake. He still sees in its 
features the reflection of beauty and divinity, and only he. 'How art 
tjiou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning ! How art tliou 
cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations ! ' Many might* 
men have been slain by thee ; many proud ones have humbled themselves 
at thy feet! All along the coast of our political sea these victims of 
slavery lie like stranded wrecks, broken on the headlands of freedom. 



190 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAKFIELD. 

How lately did its advocates, ■with impious boldness, main tain it as God's 
own, to be venerated and cherished as divine? It was another and higher 
form of civilization. It was the holy evangel of America, dispensing its 
mercies to a benighted race, and destined to bear countless blessings to 
the wilderness of the West. In its mad arrogance it lifted its hand to 
strike down, the fabric of the Union, and since that fatal day it has been a 
' fugitive and a vagabond upon the earth.' Like the spirit that Jesus cast 
out, it has, since then, ' been seeking rest and finding none.' 

"It has sought in all the corners of the Republic to find some hiding- 
place in which to shelter itself from the death it so richly deserves. 

"It sought an asylum in the untrodden territories of the west, but, 
with a whip of scorpions, indignant freemen drove it thence. I do not 
believe that a loyal man can now be found who would consent that it 
should again enter them. It has no hope of harbor there. It found 
no protection or favor in the hearts or consciences of the freemen of the 
Eepublic, and has fled for its last hope of safety behind the shield of the 
Constitution. "We propose to follow it there, and drive it thence, as 
Satan was exiled from heaven. But now, in the hour of its mortal agony, 
in this hall, it has found a defender. 

"My gallant colleague [Mr. Pendleton], for I recognize him as a gallant 
and able man, plants himself at the door of his darling, and bids defiance 
to all assailants. He has followed slavery in its flight, until at last it has 
reached the great temple where liberty is enshrined — the Constitution of 
the United States — and there, in that last retreat, declares that no hand 
shall strike it. It reminds me of that celebrated passage in the great 
Latin poet, in which the serpents of the Ionian sea, when they had de- 
stroyed Laocoon and his sons, fled to the heights of the Trojan citadel and 
coiled their slimy lengths around the feet of the tutelar goddess, and 
were covered by the orb of her shield. So, under the guidance of my 
colleague [Mr. Pendleton], slavery, gorged with the blood often thousand 
freemen, has climbed to the high citadel of American nationality, and 
coiled itself securely, as he believes, around the feet of the statue of 
Justice and under the shield of the Constitution of the United States. We 
desire to follow it even there, and kill it beside the very altar of liberty. 
Its blood can never make atonement for the least of its crimes. 

"But the gentleman has gone further. He is not content that the 
snaky sorceress shall be merely under the protection of the Constitution. 
In his view, by a strange metamorphosis, slavery becomes an invisible 



IN THE ASCENDANT.— WHY SLAVERY SHOULD DIE. 191 

essence, and takes up its abode in the very grain and fiber of the Consti- 
tution, and Avhen we Avould strike it he says, ' I can not point out any 
express clause that prohibits you from destroying slavery; but I find a 
prohibition in the intent and meaning of the Constitution. I go under 
the surface, out of sight, into the very genius of it, and in that invisible 
domain slavery is enshrined, and there is no power in the Republic to 
drive it thence.' 

"But he has gone even deeper than the spirit and intent of the Con- 
stitution. He has announced a discovery, to which I am sure no other 
statesman will lay claim. He has found a domain Avhere .slavery can no 
more be reached by human law than the life of Satan by the sword of 
Michael. He has marked the hither boundary of this newly discovered 
continent, in his response to the question of the gentleman from Iowa. 

"Not finding any thing in the words and phrases of the Constitution 
that forbids an amendment abolishing slavery, he goes behind all human 
enactments, and fiir away among the eternal equities, he finds a primal 
law which overshadows States, natious, and constitutions, as space envel- 
ops the universe, and by its solemn sanctions one human being can hold 
another in perpetual slavery. Surely, human ingenuity lias never gone 
farther to protect a malefactor, or defend a crime. I shall make no ar- 
gument Avith my colleague on this point, for in that high court to Avhich 
he appeals, eternal justice dwells with freedom, and slavery has never 
entered. 

" On the justice of the amendment itself no arguments are necessary. 
The reasons crowd in on every side. To enumerate them would be a 
Avork of superfluity. To me it is a matter of great surprise that gentle- 
men on the other side should Avish to delay the death of slavery. I can 
only account for it on the ground of long-continued fiimiliarity and friend- 
•liip. I should be glad to hear them say of slaA-ery, their beloved, as did 
the jealous Moor: 

" Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men." 
"Has she not betrayed and slain men enough? Are they not streAvn 
over a thousand battle-fields ? Is not this Moloch already gorged with the 
bloody feast? Its best friends know that its final hour is fast approach- 
ing. The avenging gods are on its track. Their feet are not noAV, as 
of old, shod Avith avooI, for slow and stately stepping, but Avinged, like 
Mercury's, to bear the SAvift message of vengeance. No human power 
can avert the final catastrophe." 



192 LIFE OF JAMES A. CxAEFIELD. 

Five days after this address, Mr, Garfield, together with Henry 
Winter Davis, made a lively attack on the "War Department. xVt 
this time the writ of habeas corpus was suspended, and the art of 
imprisoning men without warrant or accusation was reaching a 
high state of perfection. The Carroll and Old Capital prisons were 
full of \-ictims who could not find out why they were thus arbitra- 
rily confined. 

This tyrannical practice having been brought before the commit- 
tee on military affairs, some of them investigated the subject. As a 
result, a resolution was offered calling for a public inquiry, which 
resolution passed. The next day Thaddeus Stevens attempted to 
get it rescinded, whereupon he was met by a fiery speech from Mr. 
Garfield, which saved the resolution ; and in a few days there was 
a general freeing of all prisoners against whom no sufficient charges 
could be made. 

In his speech, Mr. Garfield graphically told of the great in- 
justice Avhich was being done, especially to men who had served 
the country in the field. One of these was a colonel in the Union 
army, who had been wounded and discharged from the service, 
but noNV, for some unknown reason, perhaps maliciously, had been 
deprived of his liberty. oNIr. Garfield had been an admirer of 
Stanton, and recognized the great Secretary's ability and patriot- 
ism ; but this could not save either him or his subordinates from 
just censures. 

This action was the occasion of much admiring notice from the 
public, and even from Stanton himself For such was the reputed 
roughness of Stanton's temper that few men ever had enough 
temerity to criticise him. 

On the night of April 14, 1865, the war-heated blood of this 
nation was frozen with sudden horror at a deed which then had 
no parallel in American history — the murder of Abraham Lincoln. 

That night General Garfield was in New York City. 

In the early morning hours a colored servant came to the door 
of his room at the hotel, and in a heart-broken voice announced 
that Mr. Lincoln, the emancipator of his race from bondage, had 
been shot down by a traitor to the country. 



IN THE ASCENDA>'T.— DEATH OF LINCOLN. 193 

Mofi-iiiig' Mme; but dark were the hours whose broken wings 
lai^ored to bring the light of day. Soon the streets were filled 
with people. Every body seemed to have come out and left the 
house.5 empty. It Avas not a holiday, and yet all seemed to be 
doing nothing. No business was transacted, yet mirth and laugh- 
ter Avere luiheard. Such silence and such multitudes never before 
were met together. 

Garfield wandered out into the streets, and noted these ominous 
appearances. The city \vas like Paris, just before its pavements 
are to be torn up for a barricade battle in some revolutionary 
outbreak. 

Great posters, fixed in prominent places, called for a nine o'clock 
meeting of citizens at Wall Street Exchange Building. The news- 
paper bulletins, black, brief recorders of fate as they are, were 
surrounded with crushing crowds waiting for the latest word from 
Washington. 

Arriving in the region of Wall Street, General Garfield made 
his way through the mass of men who surrounded the Exchange 
Building, until he reached the balcony. Here Benjamin F. But- 
ler was making an address. Fifty thousand people were crowding 
toward that central figure, from whose left arm waved a yard of 
crape which told the terrible story to multitudes who could not 
hear his words. 

General Butler ceased speaking. What should be done with 
this great crowd of desperate men? What would they do with 
themselves ? 

Lincoln was dead ; word came that Seward, with his throat cut, 
was dying. Men feared some dread conspiracy which would red- 
den the North with innocent blood, and hand over the Government 
to treason and traitors. 

Two men in this crowd said that " Lincoln ought to have been 
shot long ago." A minute later one of them was dead; the other 
lay in the ditch, bleeding and dying. Thousands of men clutched^ 
in their pockets, revolvers and knives, to be used ou whoever said 
a word ;i gainst the martyred President. 

Suddenly from the extreme right wing of the crowd rose a cry; 
13 



194 LIL E OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

" The AVorld ! " " The office of the Workl ! " '•' The World ! "—and 
the mass began to move as one man toward t'.iat office. Where 
woukl this end? Destruction of property, k)ss of life, violence 
and anarchy, were in that movement, and apparently no human 
power could now check its progress. 

Then a man stepped to the front of the balcony and held his 
arm aloft. His commanding attitude arrested universal attention. 
Perhaps he was going to give them the latest news. They waited. 
But while they listened, the voice — it was the voice of General 
Garfield — only said : 

"Fellow-citizens: Clouds and darkness are around about Him! His 
pavilion is dark waters and tliick clouds of the skies! Justice and judg- 
ment are the establishment of His throne! Mercy and truth shall go 
before His face! Fellow-citiztus: God reigns, and the Government at 
Washington still lives!" 

The tide of popular fury was stayed. The impossible had 
been accomplished. "The World" was saved; but that was not 
much. The safety of a great city was secured; and that was 
much. 

Other meetings were held in Xew York City on that memora- 
ble day, and the magnetic speaker of the morning was called out 
again. In the course of an address that afternoon he uttered 
these words: 

"By this last act of madness, it seems as though the Rebellion had 
determined that the President of tlie soldiers should go with the soldiers 
who have laid down their lives on the battle-field. They slew the noblest 
and gentlest heart that ever put down a rebellion upon this earth. In 
taking that life they have left the iron hand of the people to fall upon 
them. Love is on the front of the throne of God, but justice and judg- 
ment, with inexorable dread, follow behind; and when law is slighted 
and m^rcy despised, when they have rejected tliose who would be their 
best friends, then comes justice with her hoodwinked eyes, and with fh^ 
pword and scales. From every gaping wound of your dead chief, let th£» 
voice go up from the people to see to it that our house is swept and gar- 
"Dished. I hasten to say one thing more, fellow-citizens, loi mere 



IX THE ASCENDAX'T.— TRIBUTE TO LINCOLX. 195 

vengeance I would do nothing. This nation is too great to look for mere 
reveuge. But Jor security oj the future 1 would do every thing." 

It is a remarkable iact that when the nation gave expression to 
its sorrow over Lincoln's death, Garfield should have been so nota- 
bly the voice which spoke that sorrow. 

A year passed on. In April of 1866, Congress, busy with the 
important legislation of that period, neglected to remember the 
approaching anniversary. On the morning of April 14, the news- 
papers announced that, according to President Johnson's order, the 
Government offices would be closed that day out of respect to 
murdered Lincoln. 

Congressmen at the breakfast table read this announcement, and 
hurried to the Capitol, inquiring what corresponding action should 
be taken by the two Houses of Congress, 

General Garfield was in the committee room, hard at work on 
the preparation of a bill, when, shortly before time for the House 
to com« to order. Speaker Colfax came hurriedly in, saying that 
Mr. Garfield must be in the House directly and move an adjourn- 
ment. At the same time Garfield should make an address appro- 
priate to such an anniversary. That gentleman protested that the 
time was too short, but Colfax insisted, and leit the room. 

Remaining tltere alone for a quart/cr of an hour, the General 
thought of the tragic event, and wliat he should say. Is there not 
something weirdly prophetic, to us who live under the reign of 
Arthur, in the picture of that silent man of serious mien and 
thoughtful brow, sitting alone, and thinking of our frst assassinated 
President? 

Just as the clerk finished reading the previous day's Journal of 
the House, Mr. Garfield arose and said : 

"J/r. Speaker: I desire to move that this House do now adjourn; and 
before the vote ujwn that motion is taken, I desire to say a few words. 

" This day, Mr. Speaker, will be sadly memorable so long as this nation 
shall endure, which, God grant, may be 'till the last syllable of recorded 
time,' when the volume of human history shall be sealed up and deliv- 
ered to the Omnipotent Judge, 



196 LIFE OF JAMLS A. GAEFIELD. 

" In all future time, on the recurrence of this day, I doubt not that 
the citizens of this liepublic will meet in solemn assembly to reflect on 
tiie life and character of Abraham Lincoln, and the awful tragic event 
of April 14, 1865, — an event unparalleled in the history of nations, cer- 
tainly unparalleled in our own. It is eminently proper that this House 
shoidd this day place upon its records a memorial of that event. 

"The last five years have been marked by wonderful developments 
of human character. Thousands of our people before unknown to fame, 
have taken their places in history, crowned with immortal honors. In 
thousands of humble homes are dwelling heroes and patriots whose 
names shall never die. But greatest among all these developments were 
the chiiracter and fame of Abraham Lincoln, whose loss the nation still 
deplores. His character is aptly described in the words of England's 
great laureate — written thirty years ago — in which he traces the upward 
steps of some 

'"Divinely gifted man, 
Whose life in low estate began, 
And on a simple village green : 

Who breaks his birth's invidious bar. 
And grasps the skirts of happy chance, 
And breasts the blows of circumstance. 
And grapples with his evil star : 

Who makes by force his merit known, 
And lives to clutch the golden keys 
To mold a mighty State's decrees. 
And shape the whisper of the throne: 

And moving up from high to higher, 
Becomes on Fortune's crowning slope. 
The pillar of a people's hope. 
The center of a world's desire." 

" Such a life and character will be treasured forever as the sacred po!? 
session of the American people and of mankind. In the great drama of 
the rebellion, there were two acts. The first was the war, with its 
battles and sieges, victories and defeats, its sufferings and tears. That 
act was closing one year ago to-night, and just as the curtain was lifting 
on tlie second and final act, the restoration of pe:ice and liberty, — just 
as the curtain was rising upon new events and new characters, — the evil 
spirit of the rebellion, in the fury of despair, nerved and directed the 
hand of the assassin to strike down the chief character in both. 



IN THE ASCENDANT.— A rROPIIETIC ADDEESS. 197 

"It was no one man who killed Abraham Lincoln; it was the em- 
bodied spirit of treascm and slavery, inspired with feari'ul and despairing 
hate, that struck him down in the moment of the nation's supremest joy. 

" Ah, sirs, there are times in the history of men and nations when 
they stand so near the veil that separates mortals from immortals, time 
from eternity, and men from their God, that they can almost hear the 
beatings and feel the pulsations of the heart of the Infinite ! Through 
such a time has this nation passed. Wlien two hundred and fifty thou- 
sand brave spirits passed from the field of honor through that thin veil 
to the presence of God, and when at last its parting folds admitteil the 
martyr President to the company of the dead heroes of the Ilepublic, 
the nation stood so near the veil tliat the whisjjers of God were heard 
by the children of men. 

"Awe-stricken by His voice, the American people knelt in tearful 
reverence and made a solemn covenant with Him and with each other 
that this nation should be saved from its enemies, that all its glories 
should be restored, and on the ruins of treason and slavery the temples 
of freedom and justice should be built, and should survive forever. It 
remains for us, consecrated by that great event, and under a covenant 
with God, to keep that faith, to go forward in the great work until it 
shall be completed. 

" Following the lead of that great man, and obeying the high behests 
of God, let us remember that — 

" 'He has sounded forth a trumpet that shall never call retreat ; 
He is siftuig out the hearts of men before his judgment-seat. 
Be swift, my soul, to answer him, be jubilant at my feet; 
For God is marching on.' 

" I move, sir, that this House do now adjourn." 

The motion being agreed to, the House was declared adjourned. 

It is now necessary to hasten on to the Thirty-Ninth Congress, 
wherein General Garfield, no longer under the disadvantages of a 
new member, continued to develop rapidly as an able worker. 

General Garfield was u thorough-going temperance man. On 
returning to his house in Paincsville, Ohio, in the summer of I860, 
he found the good people of tluit place in trouble on account of a 
brewery which had been established in their midst. All efforts 



198 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

to have it removed had been unavailing. Public meetings were 
hehl. Garfiekl attended one of these, and while there annonnced 
tliat he would that day remove the brewer}'. 

He just went over to the brewer and bought him out tor $10,000. 
The liquor on hand, and such brewing machinery as could not 
be used for any thing else, he destroyed. When autumn came 
he used his new establishment as a cider-mill. The cider was kept 
till it became good vinegar, and then sold. The General thus did 
a good thing for the public, and, it is said, made money out of the 
investment, until, after several years, he sold the building. 

AVhen Congress met in December, 1865, it had to face a great 
task. The rebellion had been put down, but at great cost ; and 
tJiey had an enormous debt to provide for. Four years of war had 
disorganized every thing, and great questions of finance, involving 
tariffs, and taxation, and a thousand vexed themes of public policy, 
hung with leaden weight over the heads of our national legislators. 

Garfield was one of the few men who were both able and will- 
ing to face the music and bury themselves in the bewildering world 
of figures which loomed in the dusky foreground of coming events. 
The interest alone on our liabilities amounted to §150,000,.000. 

AYhcn Speaker Colfax made up his committees, he asked Gar- 
field Avhat he would like. Garfield replied that ho would like to 
have a place which called for the study of finance. Justin S. 
Morrill, Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, also 
asked for him. 

He was, accordingly, put upon that committee, and immediately 
began to study the subjects which were connected with its pros- 
pective work. 

Conceiving that our financial condition was in some respects 
parallel to that of England at the close of the Napoleonic wars, he 
carefully investigated the conditions, policy, and jirogress of that 
Government from the time of Waterloo until the resumption of spe- 
cie payments. The most remarkable periods of our own financial 
history were also studied, especially that wherein the great Alex- 
ander Hamilton appears tjie master mind. 

These pursuits, and a wide-reaching knowledge of the existing 



IX THE ASCENDA>:T.— AS A LAWYER. 199 

conditions in our own country, were the foundations on which 
Garfield built the structure of a set of opinions which were then 
received as good, and which still withstand the test of time. 

Garfield was a splendid lawyer. It is only because his course 
was pushed aside into the great lines of war and of politics that 
his history is not largely the story of great triumphs at the 
bar. When he was examined for admission to the bar of Ohio, 
the lawyers who examined him pronounced his legal knowledge 
phenomenal for a man to have acquired in the short time he had 
been reading. 

But he never practiced in any court until ISGG, In this place 
there can be mentioned only his first case, in which he argued be- 
fore the United States Supreme Court. Afterwards he had about 
thirty cases in that court, and often appeared in State courts. 
At one time Judge Jeremiah S. Black, a lawyer of National rep- 
utation, offered him a partnership. Financially it would have 
been a good thing for Garfield, but fortunately for his constitu- 
ents and for the country, he refused. Yet, in the language of 
Stanley Matthews, now of the U. S. Supreme Court, Mr. Garfield 
actually ranked "as one of the very best la'wyers at the bar of 
the whole country." 

In 1864, L. P. JNIilligan, AV. A. Bowles, and Stephen Horsey, 
three citizens of Indiana, were arrested in that State on charges 
of treason. There was no doubt that they were guilty of the 
crime. But, unfortunately, they were not tried according to law. 
No government can long hold such absolute powers as were given 
to our government during the rebellion, without developing in 
some degree a carelessness of the forms of law which is fatal 
to liberty. Indiana was not the scene of war. Her courts, and 
the United States courts there M-ere open for the prosecution of 
criminals. Yet these men were arrested by the military depart- 
ment, tried by a military commission, and condemned to be h.anged. 
Lincoln commuted their sentence to imprisonment for life, and 
they were sent to the State penitentiary. At this juncture a ])e- 
tition was presented to the U. S. Circuit Court for a writ of 
habeas corjms, to test the legality of these arbitrary })rocecdings. 



200 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAKFIELD. 

The judges of that court not agreeing, the points on which they 
disagreed were certified up to the Supreme Court. These points 
were : 

"1. On the facts stated in said petition and exhibits, ought a writ of 
habeas corpus to be issued according to the prayer of said petition? 2. 
On tbe facts stated in said petition and exhibits, ought the ])etitiojiers to 
be discharged from custody, as in said petition prayed ? 3. On the facts 
stated ill said petition and exhibits, had the mihtary commission men- 
tioned tlicrein jurisdiction h'gally to try and sentence said petitioners in 
manner and form as in said petition and exhibits is stated?" 

This was the case. On March G, 1866, it was to be argued. 
The eminent counsel engaged therein were : Hons. Joseph E. Mc- 
Donald, Jere. S. Black, James A. Garfield, and David D. Field, 
for petitioners; Hons. Benjamin F. Butler, James Speed, and 
Henry Stanbery, for the Government, 

Garfield had been invited to appear in this case by Mr. Black, 
who had observed that, although a patriotic friend of the Admin- 
istration, Garfield had often sternly opposed its tendency to break 
all restraints of law in the exercise of its powers. So he expected, — 
and found it true, — that Garfield's judgment would be with his 
side of the Milligan case. Of course that -was the unpopular side. 
For Mr. Garfield to defend Milligan and his fellow-traitors would 
perhaps again endanger his reelection ; but he was not the man to 
hesitate when he saw himself in the right. 

One of Garfield's Democratic co-counsel in this case has called 
this act the greatest and bravest of Garfield's life. Like old John 
Adams, defending British soldiers for the Boston massacre, storms 
of obloquy and the sunshine of favor he alike disregarded for the 
sake of principle. 

After two days and nights of preparation, INIr. Garfield had de- 
cided upon the points of his argument. Iseedk>ss to say, it was a 
complete and unanswerable presentation of those great English 
and American constitutional ])rincii)les which secure tlie free peo- 
])lc of those countries from star chambers and military despotisms. 
It showed forth clearly the limits of military power, ^vd demon- 



IN THE ASCENDANT.— SPEECH ON HABEAS COEPUS. 201 

strated the utter want of jurisdiction of a military court over civil- 
ian citizens. 

When Garfield finished, he had established every essential point 
of his case beyond a pcradventure. His speech closed with these 
eloquent words, in appeal to the court: 

" Youi- deci.-ion will mark an era in American history. The just and 
final settlement of tiiis great question will take a high jjluce among the 
great achievements which have immortalized this decade. It will estab- 
lish forever this truth, of inestimable value to us and to mankind, that 
a Republic can wield the vast enginery of war without breaking down the 
safeguards of liberty; can suppress insurrection and put down rebellion, 
however formidable, without destroying the bulwarks of law; can, by 
the might of its armed millions, preserve and defend both nationality 
and liberty. Victories on the field were of priceless value, for they 
plucked the life of the Republic out of the hands of its enemies ; but 

' Peace hath her victories 
No less renowned th 



an war: 



and if the protection of law shall, by your decision, be extended over 
every acre of our peaceful territory, you will have rendered the great 
decision of the century. 

" When Pericles had made Greece immortal in arts and arms, in 
liberty and law, he invoked the genius of Phidias to devise a monument 
which should symbolize the beauty and glory of Athens. That artist 
selected for his theme the tutelar divinity of Athens, the Jove-born God- 
dess, protectress of arts and arms, of industry and law, who typified the 
Greek conception of composed, majestic, unrelenting force. He erected 
on the heights of the Acropolis a colossal statue of JNIinerva, armed with 
spear and helmet, which towered in awful majesty above the surrounding 
temples of the gods. Sailors on far-off ships beheld the crest and spear 
of the Goddess, and bowed with reverent awe. To every Greek she was 
the symbol of power and glory. But the Acropolis, with its temples and 
statues, is now a heap of ruins. The visible gods have vanished in tlie 
clearer light of modern civilization. We can not restore the decayed 
emblems of ancient Greece, but it is in your power, O Judge, to erect 
in this citadel of our liberties a monument more lasting than brass ; in- 
visible, indeed, to the eye of flesh, but visible to the eye of the spirit 



202 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

as the awful form and figure of Justice crowning ami adorning the Ke- 
public; rising above the storms of political strife, above the din of 
battle, above the earthquake shock of I'ebellion; seen from afar and 
hailed ;i.s iMotector by the oppressed of all nations; dispensing equal 
blessings, and covering with the protecting shield of law the weakest, the 
humblest, tlie meanest, and, until declared by solemn law unworthy of 
protection, the guiltiest of its citizens." 

Other and very able arguments were made on both sides of the 
case ; but the law was sustained and the prisoners set free. 

For this act Garfield -was denounced by many new'spapcrs and 
many individuals in his own State and elsewhere. But, as usual, 
he weathered it all, and was reelected to Congress in the fall ; for 
the Reserve people had come to the point of believing, in Garfield, 
though he did not follow their opinions. In from one to three 
years afterwards they generally discovered that he had been right 
from the start. 

On February 1, 18G6, Garfield made that masterly address on the 
Freedmen's Bureau, in whicli he so clearly set forth his views on 
the nature of the Union, and the States of wdiich it is com])Oscd. 
This speech will be more fully mentioned in another place.* On 
March IG, 1866, he made a remarkably able speech on "The Cur- 
rency and Specie Payments," larthcr reference to Avhich must, for 
the present, be deferred.! 

A man of Mr. Garfield's intellect and scholarly ac(piirements, 
could not fail to be interested in tlie cause of education, always 
and every-where. He was hin'.self a splendid result of the free- 
scho(d system of Ohio, and lind been an enthusiastic teacher. 
What, then, more natural than that as a public man he should try 
to interest Congress in the condition of American schools? 

At the request of the American Association of School Superin- 
tendents, Mr. Garfield, in February, 1866, i)re])ared a bill for the 
establishment of a National Bureau of Education. The principal 
object of this bureau w'as to collect statistics and other facts, and 
so to arrange and to publish then; as to enlighten the people as to 
our progress in the means of education. 'J'he bill was opposed on 



IN THE ASCENDANT.- A BUREAU OF EDUCATION. 203 

account of the expense, as it called for an appropriation of fifteen 
thousand dollars ! 

^ Speaking on this bill, June 8, 18G6, Mr. Garfield called atten- 
tion to the subject of national expenditures for extra govern- 
mental purposes. We had expended millions on a Coast Survey 
Bureau, on an Astronomical Observatory, on a Light-House Board, 
on Exploring Expeditions, on the Pacific Eailroad Survey, on 
Agriculture, on the Patent Office,— why not a few dollars on Ed- 
ucation? "As man is greater than the soil, as the immortal spirit 
is nobler than the clod it animates, so is the object of this bill of 
more importance than any mere pecuniary interest." 

The National Bureau of Education was established, and the re- 
sults of its work have fully vindicated the opinions of its founders. 

Garfield's idea of what should be taught in our schools and col- 
leges v/as as broad and deep as the domain of knowledge; but, 
\vithal, very practical. That he loved the classics, his ow^n study 
of them demonstrates ; but he saw that something better adapted 
to the scientific and practical character of our country was needed. 
In an address at Hiram, on June 14, 1867, he gave emphatic ex- 
pression to this idea. 

"A finished education is'supposed to consist mainly of literary culture. 
The story of the fo.ges of the Cyclopia, wliere the thunderbolts of Jove 
were fashioned, is supposed to adorn elegant scholarship more gracefully 
that those sturdy truths which are preaching to this generation in the 
wonders of the mine, in the fire of the furnace, in the clang of the iron- 
mills, and the other innumerable industries, which, more than all other 
human agencies, have made our civilization what it is, and aie destined 
to achieve wonders yet undreamed of This generation is beginning to 
under.stand that education should not be forever divorced from iinhistry; 
that the highest results can be reached only when science guides the 
hand of labor. With what eagerness and alacrity is industry seizing 
every truth of science and putting it in harness!" 

jNlorcovcr, ]\Ir. Garfield believed strongly in a liberal political 
education fir the youth of the land. On this point, in the address 
above mentioned, he said: 



204 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFJELD. 

"It is well to know the history of these magnificent nations, whose 
origin is lost in fable, and whose epitaphs were written a thousand years 
ago ; but, if we can not know both, it is far better to study the history 
of our own nation, whose origin we can trace to the freest and noblest 
aspirations of the human heart — a nation that was formed from the 
hardiest, purest, and most enduring elements of European civilization ; 
a nation that by its faith and courage has dared and accomplished more 
for the human race in a single century than Europe accomplished in the 
first thousand years of the Christian era. The New England township 
was the type after which our Federal Government was modeled ; yet it 
would be rare to find a college student who can make a comprehensive 
and intelligible statement of the municipal organization of the township 
in which he was born, and tell you by what officers its legislative, judi- 
cial, and executive functions are administered. One half of the time 
which is now almost wholly wasted in district schools on English gram- 
mar, attempted at too early an age, would be sufficient to teach our 
children to love the Republic, and to become its loyal and life-long sup- 
porters. After the bloody baptism from which the Nation has risen to 
a higher and nobler life, if thi.5 shameful defect in our system of educa- 
tion be not speedily remedied, we shall deserve the infinite contempt of 
future generations. I insist that it should be made an indispensable con- 
dition of graduation in every American college, that the student must un- 
derstand the history of this continent since its discovery by Europeans, 
the origin and history of the United JStates, its constitution of govern- 
ment, the struggles through which it has passed, and the rights and 
duties of citizens who are to determine its destiny and share its glory. 

" Having thus gained the knowledge which is necessary to life, health, 
industry, and citizenship, the student is prepared to enter a wider and 
grander field of thought. If he desires that large and liberal culture 
which will call into activity all his powers, and make the most of the 
material God has given him, he must study deeply and earnestly the in- 
tellectual, the moral, the religious, and the aesthetic nature of man ; his 
relations to nature, to civilization past and present; and, above all, his 
relations to God. These should occupy, nearly, if not fully, half the time 
of his college course. In connection with the philosophy of the mind, he 
should study logic, the pure mathematics, and the general laws of thought. 
In connection with moral philosophy, he should study political and social 
ethics — a science so little known either in colleges or Congresses. Promi- 



IN THE ASCENDANT.-THE FORTIETH CONGKESS. 205 

nent among all the re.st, should be bis study of the "SN'onderful histoiy of 
the human race, in its slow and toilsome march across the centuries — now 
buried in ignoiauce, superstition, and crime ; now rising to the sublimity 
of heroism and catching a glimpse of a better destiny; now turning re- 
morselessly away from, and leaving to perish, empires and civilizati jus 
in which it had invested it,s faith and courage and boundless ene.gy for a 
thousand years, and, plunging into the Ibrpsts of Germany, G.iul, and 
Britain, to build for itself new empires better fitted for its new aspirations; 
and, at last, crossing three thousand miles of unknown sea, and building 
in the wilderness of a new hemisphere its latest and proudest monuments." 

When the Fortieth Congress met, in December of 18G7, Mr. 
Garfield was, contrary to his wishes, taken off the Committee 
on Ways and Means and made Chairman of the Committee on 
Military Aifairs. In the line of this work he pursued some very 
important investigations of both military and political character. 

Among his most important speeches, in this connection, were 
that on the " Military Control of the Rebel States," made in Feb- 
ruary, 1867 (during the Thirty-Xinth Congress), and that deliv- 
ered January 17, 1868, on the then all-absorbing theme, "Recon- 
struction." 

In the conflict between President Johnson and the majority in 
Congress, about the government of the late rebel States, ]\Ir. Gar- 
field was, of course, sternly opposed to that otttrageous policy of 
the President, whose main object seemed to be the undoing of all 
the beneficial results of the Avar. 

When the articles of impeachment against Johnson were passed, 
Garfield was not in Washington; but on his return, February 29, 
1868, he took occasion to say that if he had been present he should 
have voted for them. He had formerly opposed such action be- 
cause he thought it would be unsuccessful. Johnson's later ac- 
tions, however, especially his arbitrary dismissal of Secretary 
Stanton, were such clear violations of the Constitution that he 
supposed the President's guilt could be judicially established, 
flnd therefore he favored the attempt. 

On the loth of May of this same year, Mr. Garfield delivered 
anotlier address on the currency. His financial views were still 



206 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

in aclvnnec of his party, and the unsound views advanced by various 
politicians gave opportunity for many a well-directed shot from \\\s. 
Avell-stored armory of facts, figures, and principles. His speeches 
on this topic alone would fill a large volume. 

In 18G8 occurred one of the many attempts m.ade by politician8 
to reduce the public debt by extorting money from the Nation' ,s 
creditors. On July 15, 18G8, Mr. Garfield discussed, at consider- 
able length and with all his usual clearness and ability, one 0/ 
these measures, which, in this case, was a bill for the taxation of 
bonds. He was too honest a man, and, at the same time, too 
sound a financier, to be blind to the wrong as, ^\'e]\ a>^ the im ■ 
politic character of such a law. Two i)aragraphs v*'ill suffice i.o 
exhibit these two points: 

"Nobody expects that we can pay as fast as the debt matures, but w& 
shall be compelled'to go into the market and negotiate new loans. Let 
this system of taxation be pursued ; let another Congress put the ti^x an 
twenty per cent., another at forty per cent. , and another at fifty per ceut., 
or one hundred per cent. ; let the principle once be adopted — the rate is 
only a question of discretion — and where will you be able to negotiate a 
loan except at the most ruinous sacrifice ? Let such legislation prevail as 
the gentleman urges, and can we look any man in the face and ask iiim 
to loan us money? If we do not keep faith to-day, how can we expect 
to be trusted hereafter? 

"There was a declaration made by an old English gentleman in the 
days of Charles II. which does honor to human nature. He said he was 
willing at any time to give his life for the good of his country; but he 
would not do a mean thing to save his country from ruin. So, sir, ought 
a citizen to feel in regard to our financial affairs. The people of the 
United States can afford to make any sacrifice f )r their country, and the 
history of the last war has proved their willingness; but the humblest 
citizen can not afford to do a mean or dishonorable thing to save even this 
glorious Ivepublic." 

It was in 1867 that Garfield made his only trip to Europe. 
"When the summer of that year c'ame, the hard year's work, just fin- 
ished, had made considerable inroad on his health, and he thought 
a sea voyage would bring back his strength. On July 13, Mr. and 



IN THE ASCENDANT.— VISITS EUROPE. 207 

Mrs, Garfield sailed from New York in the " City of London," 
which carried them acr<)ss the Atlantic in thirteen days. 

Remembering the a»<ibitions of his boyhood to become a sailor, 
Garfield enjoyed his voyage as few men do who cross the sea. 
They reached Liverpool on the 26th,,And as they steamed up the 
Mersey, General Garfield significantly remarked, looking down 
into its muddy waters, 

''*Tlie quality of Mersey is not strained." 

From Liverpool they went to London, stopping at tAvo or three 
interesting places by the way. At London he visited both Houses 
of Parliament, heard debates on the great reform bill which passed 
at that time; saw Gladstone, Disraeli, Bright, and other great 
Englishmen, and after a week of sight-seeing and studying here, 
visited other parts of England, and then went to Scotland. Mr. 
Blaine and Mr. Morrill, were with them in Scotland. , There the 
General visited the home of Burns and re-read "Tam O'Shanter." 

Leaving Scotland at Leith, they crossed the North Sea to Rot- 
terdam, went to Brussels and Cologne, and thence up the Rhine to 
Mayence. 

Thence by various stages, reveling in old world glories, he 
reached Italy — Florence and Rome. Here a year of life was 
crowded into a week, :while Garfield lived amid the wrecks of 
antiquity and the decayed remnants of that dead empire whose 
splendid history can not be forgotten till "the last syllable of re- 
corded time." 

On October first they proceeded, by a circuitous route, to make 
their way to Paris, where they met several American friends, 
among them the artist, Miss Ransom. After a short stay there, 
and a few excursions to other places, they finally started for home, 
and by November 6th they were once more standing on American 
soil. 

General Garfield's health was by this means thoroughly restored, 
and he had realized in some degree one of the sincerest wishes of 
his life, — a more familiar acquaintance with some places across the 
sea than books could give. 



208 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

On May 30, 18G8, occurred the first general observance of tha: 
beautiful national custom, the annual decoration of the soldiers' 
graves. On that day, the President and his Cabinet, with a large 
number of Congressmen and other distinguished persons, and about 
fifteen thousand people, met on Arlington Heights to pay their re- 
spects to the Nation's dead, and listen to an address. The orator 
of the day was Garfield. 

No more touching and sincere expression of patriotic sentiments 
was ever uttered than he spoke there that day. Indeed, his rev- 
erence for the time and place was deeper than his words could tell. 
To this he referred in the beginning, saying: 

" If silence is ever golden, it must be here, beside the graves of fifteen 
thousand men, whose lives were more significant than sj)eecli, and whose 
death was a poem the music of wliich can never be sung. With Avords 
we make promises, jilight faith, praise virtue. Promises may not be 
kept; plighted' faith may be broken; and vaunted virtue may be only 
the cunning mask of vice. We do not know one promise these men 
made, one pledi'e they gave, one word they spoke; but we do know they 
summed uj) and perfected, by one supreme act, the highest virtues of 
men and citizens. For love of country they accepted death; and thus 
resolved all doubts, and made immortal their patriotism and their virtue. 

" For the noblest man that lives tliere still remains a conflict. He 
must still withstand the assaults of time and fortune ; must still be as- 
sailed with temptations before which lofty natui-es have fallen. But with 
these, the conflict ended, the victory was won, when death stamped on 
them the gieat seal of heroic character, and closed a record which years 
can never blot." 

This memorable address closed thus: 

"And now, consider this silent assend)ly of the dead. What does it 
represent? Nay, rather, what does it not represent? It is an epitome 
of the war. Here are sheaves reaped, in the harvest of death, from 
every battle-field of Virginia. If each grave had a voice to tell us a\ hat 
its silent tenant last saw and heard on earth, Ave might stand, with un- 
covered heads, and hear the whole story of the war. We should hear 
that one perished when the first great drops of the crimson shower began 
to fall, when the darkness of that first disaster at Manassas fell like an 



IN THE ASCENDANT.— CROWNING THE VICTORS. 209 

eclipse on the Nation; that another died of disease while wearily waiting 
for winter to end; that this one fell on the field, in sight of the spires of 
Kichmond, little dreaming that the flag must be carried through three 
more years of blood before it should be planted in that citadel of treason ; 
and that one fell when the tide of war had swept us back, till the roar 
of rebel guns shook the dome of yonder Capitol, and re-echoed in the cham- 
bers of the Executive Mansion. We should hear mingled voices from the 
Ilappahaimock, the Rapidan, the Chickahominy, and the James ; solemn 
voices from the Wilderness, and triumphant shouts from the Shenandoah, 
from Petersburgh, and the Five Forks, mingled with the wild acclaim 
of victory and the sweet chorus of returning peace. The voices of these 
dead will forever fill the land, like holy benedictions. 

"What other spot so fitting for their last resting-place as this, under 
the shadow of the capitol saved by their valor? Here, where the grim 
edge of battle joined ; here, where all the hope and fear and agony of 
their country centered ; here let them rest, asleep on the Nation's heart, 
entombed in the Nation's love! 

" The view from this spot bears some resemblance to that which greets 
the eye at Rome. In sight of the Capitol ine Hill, up and across the 
Tiber, and overlooking the city, is a hill, not rugged or lofty, but known 
as the Vatican Mount. At the beginning of the Christian Era, an im- 
perial circus stood on its summit. There, gladiator slaves died for the 
sport of Rome, and wild beasts fought with wilder men. In that arena, 
a Galilean fisherman gave up his life, a sacrifice for his faith. No human 
life was ever so nobly avenged. On that spot was reared the proudest 
Christian temple ever built by human hands. For its adornment, the 
rich oflTerings of every clime and kingdom had been contributed. And 
now, after eighteen centuries, the hearts of two hundred million people 
turn toward it with reverence when they worship God. As the traveler 
descends the Apennines, he sees the dome of St. Peter rising above the 
desolate Campagna and the dead city, long before the Seven Hills and 
ruined palaces appear to his view. The fame of the dead fisherman has 
outlived the glory of the Eternal City. A noble life, crowned with he- 
roic death, rises above and outlives the pride and pomp and glory of the 
mightiest empire of the earth. 

" Seen from the western slope of our Capitol, in direction, distance, and 
appearance, this spot is not unlike the Vatican Mount, though the river 
that flows at our feet is larger than a hundred Tibers. Seven years ago 
14 



210 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

tills was the home of one who hfted his sword against the hfe of liis 
country, and who became the great imperator of the rebellion. The soil 
beneath our feet was watered by the tears of slaves, in whose hearts the 
sight of yonder proud Capitol awakened no pride, and inspired no hope. 
The face of the goddess that crowns it was turned toward the sea, and not 
toward them. But, thanks be to God, this arena of rebellion and slav- 
ery is a scene of violence and crime no longer ! This Avill be forever the 
sacred mountain of our capital. Here is our temple ; its pavement is 
the sepulcher of heroic hearts ; its dome, the bending heaven ; its altar 
candles, the watching stars. 

" Hither our children's children shall come to pay their tribute of grate- 
ful homage. For this are we met to-day. By the happy suggestion of 
a great society, assemblies like this are gathering at this hour in every 
State in the Union. Thousands of soldiers are to-day turning aside in 
the march of life to visit the silent encampments of dead comrades who 
once fought by their sides. 

" From many thousand homes, whose light was put out when a soldier 
fell, there go forth to-day, to join these solemn processions, loving kindred 
and friends, from whose hearts the shadow of grief will never be lifted 
till the light of the eternal Avorld dawns upon them. 

"And here are children, little children, to whom the Avar left no father 
but the Father above. By the most sacred right, theirs is the chief 
])lace to-day. They come with garlands to crown their victor fathers. I 
will delay the celebration no longer." 



LEADEK AND STATESMAN.— A N'TI-IXFLATION. 211 



CHAPTER YII. 

I>EADER AND STATESMAN. 

To be more wise than other men — to stand 

AVhen others quail and Mayer, and to fling 
Aside expedients, nor be unmanned 

When perils gather and dissensions spring 

And treason's brood thrust out the venomed sting, 
To dare the anger of the populace 

That shouts and gibes while Clamor spreads her wing, 
To meet unmoved the tides that rush apace, — 
Such is the statesman's work, — behold him face to face. 

AS a politician, General Garfield was peculiar. In fact, he 
Mas scarcely a politician at all. The title of this chapter 
tells what he Mas. While he Mas in Europe the crv of inflat- 
ing the currency Mas raised. The West, and particularly Ohio, 
seized this idea M'ith avidity. Ohio Republicans took it up as 
a battle-cry. Many of General Garfield's constituents M"ere for 
inflation Mith all their hearts. As for himself, he had, in JSIarch, 
1866, declared for hard money, and for the payment of the bonds 
in gold. Congressmen have to go to the country every tM'o years, 
so that the popular sentiment may be constantly represented in the 
LoM'er House of Congress. Garfield had been reelected three 
times. To secure another election, most men Mould have found 
their political opinions, about election time, gradually coming 
around to those of the people. Read the folloM'ing extract from 
a letter by General Garfield to his confidential friend, Hinsdale, 
M-ritten March 8, 1868: 

" TJie State convention at Columbus has committed itself to some financial 
docirims Uiat, if I understand tJiem, I can not and ivill not indorse. If my 



212 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

consUtueuts approve them, they can not approve me. Before many weeks my 
immediate political future will be decided. I care less about the result 
than I have ever cared before." 

How' is that for independence? 

But the private letter was only the preface to an expression of 
thc^ same thing in public. When General Garfield came home his 
friends found that he was immovable on the financial question. A 
short time before the nominating convention he Avas about to return 
to AVashington. Some friends at Jefferson arranged to give him a 
reception on the eve of his departure. There was to be some 
sjieech-making. His friends had urged him to let the financial 
question alone. The w'elcoming address contained some broad hints. 
The speaker hinted at the greenback platform, and delicately inti- 
mated that General Garfield's return was conditioned upon his 
indorsement of the platform. Then the thunderer let fly. Gar- 
field took up the question of finance, and, in the boldest terms, de- 
nounced the party platform as dishonest and despicable. He de- 
clared that if a life-time of office were offered him, with the 
understanding that he was to support the platform, he would refuse 
it at once. Then he took himself off to Washington. When the 
time for the convention came he was renominated, and a short time 
later elected. 

It is impossible to even sketch the varied activities of the man 
from this time on, in Congress. His voluminous reports, his compre- 
hensive debates on every leading subject, his immense and varied 
committee w^ork, comprise a vast field, the very outline of which 
w'ould surpass the limits of this work. No subject of national 
importance escaped his attention. Eeconstruction, pensions, nav- 
igation, tariff, internal improvements, the census, education, the 
Indian question, corporations, the currency, national banks, pub- 
lic expenditures, civil service reform, railways, civil rights, po- 
lygamy, the Chinese — these are only a few of the great subjects 
wliich he mastered. His speeches are incomparable for their pro- 
fMind learning, their exhaustive research, their glowing rhetoric. 
They might serve as text-books upon the great governmental 
problems of the age. In looking over the record of the proceed- 



LEADER AND STATESMAN.— THE NINTH CENSUS. 213 

ings in Congress at this period, one can but be impressed with 
the marked superiority of his efforts over those of the large ma- 
jority of his compeers. However worthy the utterances of these 
latter may be viewed alone,' they are dwarfed by the forced com- 
parison with the productions of his majestic mind. These speeches 
mark the man as a carefully trained intellectual giant, perfectly 
at home and a terror in the field of debate. They are of inesti- 
mable value now, as giving his intellectual biography. 

On December 14, 1868, he introduced a bill "To strengthen 
the public credit." This subsequently became a part of the great 
bill making our bonds payable in gold. Around this fortification 
of the public credit, for ten years, political warfare raged the 
fiercest, but the rampart was never taken ; and, in 1879, when 
resumption was accomplished, the law still remained on the statute 
book. Every attempt to repeal it was fought by Garfield on the 
principles of political science, and his name must be placed with 
those of Grant and Sherman on this question. 

February 26, 1869, General Garfield, as Chairman of the Mili- 
tary Committee, made the monster report upon the reorganization 
of the army. It contains one hundred and thirty-seven printed 
pages. The stupendous problem of readjusting the armies of the 
republic to a peace footing, had occupied Garfield for years. His 
report was the result of examinations of all the leading army 
officers. It contained the history of each department of the army. 
It illuminated all the dark corners, the secret channels, the hid- 
den chambers of corruption which had been constructed in the 
militar}'' policy of the country, and was the product of enormous 
labor. 

In the spring of 1869 General Garfield introduced a resolution 
for the appointment of a committee to examine into the necessities 
for legislation upon the subject of the ninth census, to be taken the 
following year. He was appointed chairman. His speeches on 
the great subject of statistics are most characteristic. They are 
wholly out of the rut of Congressional speeches. They shov.- 
Garfield in the light of a political scientist. Nothing could more 
strikingly prove the enormous reach of his mind. He showed him- 



214 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

self abreast of the scientific thought of the age. A'olume afU-r 
volume of the Congressional Globe will be searched in vain to find 
•speeches from any other man which even approximate these studies 
in the region of social science. Nowhere in or out of Congress 
can be found so succinct and admirable a statement of the impor- 
tance of statistics. Here is an extract from his first speech, made 
x\i>ril G, 1869 : 

"This is the age of statistics, Mr. Speaker. The word 'statistics' it- 
self did not exist until 1749, whence we date the beginning of a new 
science on which modern legislation must be based, in order to be per- 
manent. Tlie ti-eatise of Achenwall, the German philosopher who origin- 
ated the word, laid the foundation of many of the greatest reforms in 
modern legislation. Statistics are state facts, facts ibr the considera- 
tion of statesmen, such as they may not neglect with safety. It has been 
truly said that ' statistics are history in repose ; history is statistics in mo- 
tion.' If we neglect the one, we shall deserve to be neglected by the other. 
The legislator without statistics is like the mariner at sea without the com- 
pass. Nothing can safely be committed to his guidance. A question of 
fearful importance, the well-being of this Republic, has agitated this 
House for many weeks. It is this: Are our rich men growing richer, 
and our poor growing poorer? And how can this most vital question 
be settled, except by the most careful and honest examination of the 
facts? Who can doubt that the next census will reveal to us more im- 
portant truths concerning the situation of our people than any census ever 
taken by any nation? By what standard could we measure the value 
of a complete, perfect record of tlie condition of the people of this coun- 
try, and such facts as should exhibit their burdens and their strength ? 
Who doubts that it would be a document of inestimable value to the 
legislator and the nation ? How to achieve it, how to accomplish it, is 
the great question. 

"We are near the end of a decade that has been full of earthquakes, 
and amid the tumult we have lost our reckoning. We do not yet com- 
prehend the stupendous changes through which we have passed, nor can 
we until the whole field is resurvgyed. If a thousand volcanoes had been 
bursting beneath the ocean, the mariner would need new charts before 
he could safely sail the seas again. We are soon to set out on our next 
decade with a thousand new elements thrown hi upon us by the war. 



LEADER AND STATESMAN.— SCIENCE OF STATISTICS. 215 

The way is trackless. AVho shall pilot us? The war repealed a part of 
our venerable census law. One schedule was devoted to slaves. Thank 
God ! it is useless now. Old things have passed away, and a multitude 
of new things are to be here recorded ; and not only the things to be 
taken, but the manner of taking them, requires a thorough remodeling 
at our hands. If this Congress does not worthily meet the demands of 
this great occasion, every member must bear no small share of the odium 
that justly attaches to men who fail to discharge duties of momeutous 
imi^ortauce, which once neglected can never be performed." 

On December 16, 1867, General Garfield made a second speech 
on the subject, so elaborate and remarkable, so unlike any thing to 
be found elsewhere in all the annals of the American Congress, 
that we yield large space to it. The latter part of the speech 
relates to the defects of the old law, and the advantages of the 
proposed new^ one : 

" The modern census is so closely related to the science of statistics 
that no general discussion of it is possible without considering the prin- 
ciples on which statistical science rests and the objects which it proposes 
to reach. 

" The science of statistics is of recent date, and, like many of its sister 
sciences, owes its origin to the best and freest impulses of modern civili- 
zation. The enumerations of inhabitants and the appraisements of prop- 
erty made by some of the nations of antiquit}' were practical means 
employed sometimes to distribute political power, but more frequently to 
adjust the burdens of war, but no attempt was made among them to 
classify the facts obtained so as to make them the basis of scientific in- 
duction. The thought of studying these facts to ascertain the wants of 
society had not then dawned upon the human mind, and, of course, there 
was not a science of statistics in this modern sense. 

"It is never easy to fix the precise date of the birth of any science, 
but we may safely say that statistics did not enter its scientific phase 
before 1749, when it received from Professor Achenwall, of Gottingen, 
not only its name, but the first comprehensive statement of its princi- 
ples. Without pausing to trace the stages of its growth, some of the 
results of the cultivation of statistics in the spirit and methods of science 
may be stated as germane to this discussion: 

"1. It has developed the truth that society is an organism, whose ele- 



21G LIFE OF JAMES A. GAKFIELD. 

meuts aud forces conform to laws as constant and pervasive as those 
which govern the material universe ; and that the study of these laws 
will enable man to ameliorate his condition, to emancipate himself 
from the cruel dominion of superstition, and from countless evils which 
were once thought beyond his control, and will make him the master 
rather than the slave of nature. IMankind have been slow to believe 
that order reigns in the universe — that the world is a cosmos and not a 
chaos. 

"The assertion of the reign of law has been stubbornly resisted at every 
step. The divinities of heathen superstition still linger in one form or 
another in the faith of the ignorant, and even intelligent men shrink from 
the contemplation of one supreme will acting regularly, not fortuitously, 
through laws beautiful and simple rather than through a fitful and ca- 
pricious system of intervention. 

" Lecky tells us that in the early ages it was believed that the motion 
of the heavenly bodies, as well as atmospheric changes, was affected by 
angels. In the Talmud, a special angel was assigned to every star and 
every element, and similar notions Avere general throughout the Middle 
Ages. 

"The scientific spirit has cast out the demons, and presented us Avith 
nature clothed and in her right mind and living under the reign of law. 
It has given us, for the sorceries of the alchemist, the beautiful laAvs of 
chemistry; for the dreams of the astrologer, the sublime truths of 
astronomy; for the wild visions of cosmogony, the monumental records 
of geology; for the anarchy of diabolism, the laws of God. But more 
stubborn still has been the resistance against every attempt to assert the 
reign of law in the realm of society. In that struggle, statistics has been 
the handmaid of science, and has poured a flood of light upon the dark 
questions of famine and pestilence, ignorance and crime, disease and death. 
"We no longer hope to predict the career and destiny of a human 
being by studying the conjunction of planets that presided at his birth. 
We study rather the laAvs of life Avithin him, and the elements and forces 
of nature and society around him. We no longer attribute the untimely 
death of infants wholly to the sin of Adam, for we knoAV it is the result 
of bad nursing and ignorance. We are beginning to acknoAvledge that — 

" 'The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, 
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.' 

Governments are only beginning to recognize these truths. 



LEADER AND STATESMAN.— INFLUENCE OF STATISTICS. 217 

" In 1853 the Presbytery of Edinburgh petitioned the^British ministry 
to appoint a day of national fasting and prayer, in order to stay the 
ravages of cholera in Scotland. Lord Palmerston, the Home Secretary, 
replietl in a letter which a century before no British statesman Avould 
have dared to write. He told the clergy of Scotland that: 'The plague 
being already upon them, activity was preferable to humiliation; that 
the causes of disease should be removed by improving the abodes of the 
poor, and cleansing them from those sources of contagion which would 
infallibly breed pestilence and be fruitful in death in spite of all the 
prayers and fastings of a united but inactive nation.' Henry Thomas 
Buckle expressed the belief that this letter will be quoted in future ages 
as a striking illustration of the progress of enlightened public opinion. 
But that further progress is possible is seen in the fact that within the 
last three years an English bishop has attributed the rinderpest to the 
Oxford essays and the writings of Colenso. 

" In these remarks I disclaim any reference to the dominion of the 
C'-eator over his spiritual universe, and the high and sacred duty of all 
his intelligent creatures to reverence and worship him. I speak solely of 
those laws that relate to the physical, intellectual, and social life of man. 

"2. The development of statistics are causing history to be rewritten. 
Till recently the historian studied nations in the aggregate, and gave us 
only the story of princes, dynasties, sieges, and battles. Of the people 
themselves — the great social body with life, growth, sources, elements, and 
laws of its own — he told us nothing. Now statistical inquiry leads him 
into the hovels, homes, workshops, mines, fields, prisons, hospitals, and 
all places where human nature displays its weakness and its strength. 
In these explorations he discovers the seeds of national growth and de- 
cay, and thus becomes the prophet of his generation. 

"Without the aid of statistics, that most masterly chapter of human 
history, the third of Macaulay's first volume, could never have been 
written. 

" S. Statistical science is indispensable to modern statesmanship. In 
legislation as in physical science it is beginning to be understood that we 
can control terrestial forces only by obeying their laws. The legislator 
must formulate in his statues not only the national will, but also those 
great laws of social life revealed by statistics. He must study society 
rather than black-letter learning. He must learn the truth ' that society 
usually prepares the crime, and the criminal is only the instrument that 



218 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

accomplishes it;' that statesmanship consists rather in removing causes 
than in punishing or evading results. 

"Light is itself a great corrective. A thousand wrongs and abuses 
that grow in the darkness disappear like owls and bats before the light 
of day. For example, who can doubt that before many months the press 
of tliis country will burn down the whipping-posts of Delaware as effect- 
ually as the mirrors of Archimedes burned the Roman shi]os in the har- 
bor of Syracuse? 

"I know of no writer Avho has exhibited the importance of this science 
to statesmanship so fully and so ably as Sir George Cornwall Lewis, in his 
treatise On the Methods of Observation and Reasoning on Politics. 

" After showing that politics is now taking its place among the sciences, 
and as a science its superstructure rests on observed and classified facts, 
he says of the registration of political facts, which consists of history and 
statistics, that 'it may be considered as the entrance and propyla^a to 
politics. It furnishes the materials upon which the artificer operates, 
which he hews into shape and builds up into a symmetrical structure.' 

"In a subsequent chapter, he portrays the importance of statistics to 
the practical statesman in this strong and lucid language: 

" ' He can hardly take a single safe step without consulting them. 
Whether he be framing a plan of finance, or considering the operation 
of an existing tax, or following the variations of trade, or studying the 
public health, or examining the effects of a criminal law, his conclusions 
ought to be guided by statistical data.' — Vol. i, p. 134. 

"Napoleon, with that wonderful vision vouchsafed- to genius, saw the 
importance of this science when he said : 

" ' Statistics is the budget of things; and without a budget there is no 
public safety.' 

" We may not, perhaps, go as far as Goethe did, and declare that 
'figures govern the world;' but we can fully agree with him that 'they 
show how it is governed.' 

"Baron Quetelet, of Belgium, one of the ripest scholars and profound- 
est students of statistical science, concludes his latest chapter of scientific 
results in these words : 

'"One of the principal results of civilization is to reduce more and 
more the limits within which the different elements of society fluctuate. 
The more intelligence increases the more these limits are reduced, and the 
nearer we aj)proach the beautiful and the good. The perfectibility of the 



LEADER AND STATESMAN.— ANALYZES THE CENSUS. 219 

human species results as a necessary consequence of all our researches. 
Physical delects and monstrosities are gradually disappearing ; the fre- 
quency and severity of diseases are resisted more successfully by the 
progress of medical science ; the moral qualities of man are proving 
themselves not less capable of •improvement ; and the more we advance, 
the less we shall have need to fear those great political convulsions and 
wars and their attendant results, which are the scourges of mankind.' 

"It should be added that the growing importance of political .-cience, 
as well as its recent origui, is exhibited in the fact that nearly every 
modern nation has established within the last half centuiy a bui-enu of 
general statistics for the uses of statesmanship and science. la the 
thirty states of Europe they are now a-siduously cultivating tlie science. 
Not one of their central l)ureaus was fully organized before tlie year 
1800. 

"The chief instrument of American statistics is the census, whicii should 
accomplish a two-fold object. It should serve the country by making a 
full and accurate exhibit of the elements of national life and strength, 
and it should serve the science of statistics by so exhibiting general 
results that tliey may be compared with similar data obtained by other 
nations. 

" In the light of its national uses and its relations to social science, 
let us consider the origin and development of the American census. 

"During the colonial period, several enunierations of the inhabitants 
of the Colonies were made by the order of the British Board of Trade ; 
but no general concerted attempt Avas jnade to take a census until 
after the opening of the Revolutionary War. As illustrating the practical 
difficulty of census-taking at that time, a passage in a letter, written in 
1715 to the Lords of Trade, by Hunter, the colonial governor of New 
York, may be interesting: 

" ' The superstition of this peoj)le is so unsm-moun table that I believe 
I shall never be able to obtain a complete list of the number of inlial)- 
itants of this province.' — Neiv York Coloi^ial BfSS., vol. v, p. 459. 

" He then suggests a computation, based upon returns of militia and 
of freemen, afterward the women and children, and then the servants 
and slaves. 

"William Burnet, colonial governor of New Jersey, to the Lords of 
Trade, June 26, 172fi, after mentioning returns made in 1723, says : 

" ' I would have then ordered the like accounts to be taken in New 



220 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

Jerse}', but I was advised it might make the people uneasy, they being 
generally of a New England extraction, and thereby enthusiasts ; and 
that they would take it for a repetition of the same sin that David com- 
mitted in numbering the people, and might bring on the like judgments. 
This notion put me off from it at the time, but since your lordships desii-e 
it, I will give the orders to the sheriffs, that it may be done as soon as 
may be.' 

" That this sentiment has not wholly disappeared, may be seen from 
the following: At a public meeting held on the evening of November 12, 
1867, in this city, pending the taking of the census of the District of 
Columbia by the Department of Education and the municipal author- 
ities, a speaker, whose name is given in the reported proceedings, said: 

" ' I regard the whole matter as illegal. Taking the census is an im- 
portant matter. In the Bible we are told David ordered Joab to take 
the census when he had no authority to do so, and Joab was punished 
for it.' He thought these parties, the Metropolitan police, should be 
enjoined from asking questions, and he advised those who had not 
returned the blank, not to fill it up or answer a single question. 

" As early as 1775 the Continental Congx'css resolved that certain of 
the burdens of the war should be distributed among the Colonies, ' accord- 
ing to the number of inhabitants of all ages, including negroes and 
mulattoes, in each colony;' and also recommended to the several colonial 
conventions, councils, or committees of safety, to ascertain the number of 
inhabitants in each colony, and to make returns to Congress as soon as 
possible. Such responses as were made to this recommendation, were 
probably of no great value, and are almost wholly lost. 

"The Articles of Confederation, as reported by John Dickinson, in 
July, 1776, provided for a triennial enumeration of the inhabitants of 
the States, such enumeration to be the basis of adjusting the 'charges 
of war and all other expenses that should be incurred for the common 
defense or general welfare.' The eighth of the articles, as they were 
finally adopted, provided that these charges and expenses should be 
defrayed out of a common treasury, to be supplied by the several States 
in ' proportion to the value of land within each State granted to or sur- 
veyed for any person ; and such land and the buildings and improve- 
ments thereon shall be estimated according to such mode as tlie United 
States, in Congress assembled, shall from time to time direct and ajipoint.' 

"The ninth article gave Congress the authority ' to agree upon tie 



LEADER AND STATESxM AN.— GROWTH OF THE CENSUS. 221 

numbers of land forces, and to make requisitions from each of its quota 
in proportion to the number of white inhabitants in such State.' These 
articles, unquestionably contemplated a national census, to include a 
valuation of land and an enumeration of population, but they led to no 
substantial results. When the blanks in the revenue report of 1783 
were filled, the committee reported that they had been compelled to 
estimate the population of all the States except New Hampshire, Rhode 
Island, Connecticut, and Maryland. 

"The next step is to the Constitutional Convention of 1787. The 
charter of Government, framed by that body, provided for a national 
census to be taken decennially. Moreau de Jonnes, a distinguished French 
writer on statistics, in his ' Elements de Statistique,' refers to the consti- 
tutional provision in the following elevated language : 

" 'The United States presents in its histoiy a phenomenon which ha3 
no parallel. It is that of a people who instituted the statistics of their 
country on the very day when they formed their Government, and who 
regulated in the same instrument the census of their citizens, their civil 
and political I'ights, and the destinies of the country.' 

" De Jonnes considers the American census the more remarkable be- 
cause it was instituted at so early a date by a people very jealous of 
their liberties; and he gives emphasis to his statement by referring to 
the heavy penalties imposed by the first law of Congress to carry these 
provisions into effect. 

"It must be confessed, however, that the American founders looked 
only to practical ends. A careful search through the 'Madison Papers' 
has failed to show that any member of the Convention considered the 
census in its scientific bearings. But they gave us an instrument by 
which those ends can be reached. 'They builded wiser than they knew.' 

"In pursuance of the requirements of the Constitution, an act pro- 
viding for an enumeration of the inhabitants of the United States was 
passed March 1, 1790. 

" As illustrating the growth of the American census, it is worth ob- 
serving that the report of the first census was an octavo pamphlet of 
fifty-two pages, and that of 1800, a folio of seventy-eight pages. 

"On the 23d of January, 1800, a memorial of the American Philo- 
sophical Society, signed by Thomas Jefferson as its President, was laid 
before the Senate. In this remarkable paper, written in the spirit nnd 
interest of science, the memorialists prayed that the sphere of the census 




"■'^^S-^'it i 



I 




li|iPI!lll|ii'!'i' 











iiiiiiiiiM^ 



:'::S-:\ a ?3 



iiiiil 



LEADEK AND STATESMAN.— STATISTICAL SUGGESTIONS. 223 

might be greatly extended; but it does not appear to have made any 
impression on the ^Senate, for no trace of it is found in the annals of 
Congress. 

"The results attained by the first six censuses were meager for the 
purposes of science. That of 1790 embraced population onl}--, its single 
schedule containing six inquiries. That of 1800 had only a population 
schedule with fourteen inquiries. In 1810, an attempt was made to 
superadd statistics of manufactures, but the results were of no value. 
In 1820 the statistics of manufactures were again worthless. In 1830 
the attempt to take them was abandoned. In 1840 there were schedules 
of population and manufactures, and some inquiries relating to educa- 
tion and employment. 

"The law of May 23, 1850, under which the seventh and eighth cen- 
suses were taken, marks an important era in the history of American 
statistics. This law owes many of its wdsest provisions and much of the 
success of its execution to Mr. Joseph C. G. Kennedy, under whose in- 
telligent superintendence the chief work of the last census W'as accom- 
plished. This law marks the transition of the American census from 
the merely practical to the scientific phase. The system thus originated 
needs cori-cction to make it conform to the later results of statistical 
science ::nd to the wants of the American people. Nevertheless, it de- 
serves the high commendations passed upon it by some of the most emi- 
nent statisticians and publicists of the Old World." * 

In continuing his speech, General Garfield considered the de- 
fects in the method of taking the census. Among the many im- 
provements suggested are the following : 

"The war has left us so many mutilated men, that a record should 
be made of those who have lost a limb or have been otherwise disabled, 
and the committee have added an inquiry to show the state of public 
health and the jDrevalence of some of the principal diseases. Dr. Jarvis, 
of Massachusetts, one of the highest living authorities on vital statistics, 
in a masterly paper presented to the committee, urged the imjiortance 
of measuring as accurately as possible the effective physical strength of 
the people. 

"It is not generally knowm how large a proportion of each nation is 
wholly or partially unfitted by physical disability for self-support. The 
statistics of France show that, in 1851, in a population of less than 



224 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

thirty-six millions, the deaf, dumb, blind, deformed, idiotic, and those 
otherwise mutilated or disabled, amounted to almost two millions. We 
thus see that in a country of the highest civilization the effective strength 
of its population is reduced one-eighteenth by physical defects. What 
general would venture to conduct a campaign without ascertaining the 
physical qualities of his soldiers as well as the number on his rolls'? In 
this great industi-ial battle, which this nation is now fighting, Ave ought 
to take every available means to ascertain the efiective strength of the 
country." 



Farther on he 



says 



"An inquiry was also added in regard to dwellings, so as to exhibit 
the several principal materials for construction, as wood, brick, stone, etc., 
and the value of each. Few things indicate more fully the condition of 
the people than the houses they occupy. The average home is not an 
imperfect picture of the wealth, comfort, refinement, and civilization of 
the average citizen." 

The next paragraph is devoted to the question of deter- 
mining the number of voters. The Fourteenth Amendment to 
the Constitution reduced a State's representation in Congress 
to the wieasurc of its votes. This was thought at the time to 
refer merely to the States where negroes were not allowed to 
vote, but Garfield found that in all the States, there were 
chihtu restrictions in the right to vote, besides color and crime, rang- 
ing all the way from residence to education and character. 

Under the topic of agricultural products, lie said: 

"It is l>elieved that the schedule thus amended will enable us to 
ascertain the elements of those wonderful forces which have made our 
country the granary of the civilized world; will exhibit also the defects of 
our agricultural methods, and stimulate our farmers to adopt those means 
which have doubled the agricultural })roducts of England since the days 
of the Stuarts, and have more than doubled the comforts of her people. 
The extent of that great j)rogress can be seen in such facts as these: 
that 'in the reign of Henry VII. fresh meat was never eaten even by 
the gentleman attendant on a great earl, except during the short interval 
between midsummer and Michaelmas,' because no adequate means were 



LEADER AND STATESMAN.-" BLACK FRIDAY." 225 

known of fattening cattle in the winter, or even of preventing the death 
of one-fifth of their whole number each year; that Catharine, queen 
of Charles II. sent to Flanders for her salad, which the wretched gar- 
dening of England did not sufficiently provide." 

Under the head of corporation statistics, he makes the fol- 
lowing significant statement: 

"Now that the great question of human slavery is removed from the 
arena of American politics, I am persuaded that the next great question 
to be confronted, ivill be that of corporations, and their relation to the inter- 
estft of the people and to the national life. The fear is noiv hitertained by many 
of our best men, that the National and State legislatures of the Union, in cre- 
ating these vast corporations, have evoked a spirit which may escape and defy 
their control and which may wield n power greater than legislatures themselves. 
The rapidity with which railroad corporations have been consolidated and 
placed within the power of a few men, during the past year, is not 
the least alarming manifestation of tliis power. Without here discussing 
the right of Congress to legislate on all the matters suggested in this di- 
rection, the committee have provided in this bill to arm the census office, 
with the power to demand from these corporations a statement of the ele- 
ments of which they are composed and an exhibit of their transactions." 

The learning, the philosophic and advanced views, the mas- 
terly grouping of social phenomena throughout this speech are 
absolutely novel and unique in the wilderness of Congres- 
sional oratory. After all the w^ealth of industry and thought 
expended on the subject, the bill failed to pass the Senate, so 
that the ninth census had to be taken under the old law. 
The body of the bill, however, eventually became the law 
under which the unequaled census of 1880 was taken. 

As we advance through the multitude of General Garfield's 
congressional speeches, selecting here and there some typical 
extract, his report on "Black Friday" attracts attention. Ev- 
ery one remembers the gold panic of September 24, ISG^^'-- 
It was the greatest financial conspiracy known to history. 
Wall Street, the scene of innumerable frauds, snares, conspir- 
acies, and panics, never saw any thing to compare with the 
historic " Black Friday." The House of Representatives ap- 



226 • LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

pointed the Committee of Banking and Currency of which 
General Garfield had been made chairman at the opening of 
the Forty-First Congress, to investigate the causes of that finan- 
cial convulsion. He went to JSTew York, incog., managed to get 
into the private room of the Gold Board, where the matter was 
undergoing a secret investigation. Here General Garfield 
made notes, and got his clue. When he could stay no longer, 
he left a clever substitute. Each witness was attached as he 
left the building and hurried down to Washington before he 
could be primed. General Garfield's examination of the wit- 
nesses was adroit and successful. The taciturn and self-poised 
Gould, the wily and exuberant Jim Fisk, alike were compelled 
to lay open the full details of the scheme. General Garfield's 
report, made March 1,1870, goes to the bottom of this the dark- 
est conspiracy ever planned. It reads like a novel, and contains 
the material for a whole library of fiction. Some idea of the 
foul plot may be had from the following summary and extracts : 

BLACK FRIDAY. 

"On the first of September, 1868, the price of gold was one hundred 
and forty-five. During the autumn and winter it continued to decline, 
interrupted' only by occasional fluctuations, till in March, 1869, it touched 
one hundred and thirty and one-fourth (its lowest point for three years), 
and continued near that rate until the middle of April, the earliest period 
to which the evidence taken by the committee refers. At that time, 
Mr. Jay Gould, president of the Erie Railroad Company, bought seven 
millions of gold, and put up the price from one hundred and thirty-two 
to one hundred and forty. Other brokers followed his example, and by 
the twentieth of May had put up the price to one hundred and foi'ty- 
four and seven-eighths, from which point, in spite of speculation, it 
continued to decline, and on the last day of July stood at one hundred 
and thirty-six. 

"The first indication of a concerted movement on the part of those 
who were prominent in the panic of September was an effort to secure 
the appointment of some person who should be subservient to their 
schemes, as Assistant Treasurer at New York, in place of Mr. H. H. 
Van Dyck, who resigned in the mouth of June. In this effort Mr. 



LEADER AND STATESMAN.— '-BLACK FRIDAY " EErORT. 227 

Gould and Mr. A. R. Corbin, a brotlier-iii-law of President Grant, appear 
to have been closely and intimately connected. If the testimony of the 
witnesses is to be believed, Mr. Corbin sugp:ested the name of his step- 
son-iii-law, Robert B. Catherwood, and Mr. Gould joined in the sugges- 
tion. 

"On what grounds ]Mr. Catherwood declined to be a candidate does 
not appear. The parties next turned their attention to General Butter- 
field, and, botk before and after his appointment, claimed to be his sup- 
porters. Gould and Catherwood testify that Corbin claimed to have 
secured the appointment, though Corbin swears that he made no recom- 
mendation in the case. General Buttei-field was appointed Assistant 
Treasurer, and entered upon the duties of that office on the first of July. 
It is, however, proper to state that the committee has no evidence that 
General Butterfield was in any way cognizant of the corrupt schemes 
which led the conspirators to desire his ap2:)ointnient, nor that tlieir rec- 
ommendations had any weight in securing it. In addition to these 
efforts, the conspirators resolved to discover, if possible, the purposes of 
the President and the Secretary of the Treasury in regard to the sales of 
gold. The first attempt in this direction, as exhibited in the evidence, 
was made on the 15th of June, when the President was on board one of 
Messrs. Fisk and Gould's Fall River steamers, on his way to Boston. At 
nine o'clock in the evening, supper was served on board, and the pres- 
ence at the table of such men as Cyrus W. Field, with several leading 
citizens of New York and Boston, was sufficient to prevent any suspicion 
that this occasion was to be used for the benefit of private speculation ; 
but the testimony of Fisk and Gould indicates clearly the purpose they 
had in view. Fisk says: 

" ' On our passage over to Boston with General Grant, we endeavored 
to ascertain what his position in regard to finances was. We went down 
to supper about nine o'clock, intending, while we were there, to have this 
thing pretty thoroughly talked up, and, if possible, to relieve him from 
any idea of putting the price of gold down.'" 

' ' Mr. Gould's account is as follows : 

" ' At this supper the question came up about the state of the country, 
the crops, prospects ahead, etc. The President was a listener; the other 
gentlemen were discussing ; some were in favor of Boutwell's selling 
gold, and some opposed to it. After they had all interchanged views, 
some one asked the President what his view was. He remarked that he 



228 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

thought thoi-e was a certain amount of fictitiousness about the prosperity 
of the country, and that the bubble might as well be tapped in one way 
as another. We supposed, from that conversation, that the President was a 
eontractiouist. His remark struck across us like a wet blanket.' 

"It appears that these skillfully-contrived efforts elicited from the 
President but one remark, and this opened a gloomy prospect for the 
specidators. Upon their return to New York, Fisk and Gould deter- 
mined to bring a great pressure upon the administration,* to prevent, if 
possible, a further decline in gold, which would certainly interfere with 
their purposes of speculation. This was to be effected by facts and ar- 
guments presented in the name of the country and its business interests ; 
and a financial theory was agreed upon, which, on its face, would appeal 
to the business interests of the country, and enlist in its support many 
patriotic citizens, but would, if adopted, incidentally enable the conspira- 
tors to make their speculations eminently successful. That theory was, 
that the business interests of the country required an advance in the 
price of gold ; that, in order to move the fall crops and secure the for- 
eign market for our grain, it was necessary that gold should be put up 
to 145. According to Mr. Jay Gould, this theory, for the benefit of 
American trade and commerce, was suggested by Mr. James INIcHenry, 
a prominent English financier, who furnished Mr. Gould the data with 
which to advocate it." 

This plan was tried vigorously. Hired new'spapers filled their 
editorial pages with arguments. Every mail brought pamphlets, 
papers, memorials, arguments^ etc., to the silent President. 
Wherever ho turned, some one was at hand to pour into his ear a 
plea for the poor country. If the Government would sell no gold, 
the conspirators would have the market in their own hands. Men 
having contracts to. furnish gold would have to buy of them at 
any price. There was no word from Grant, but the conspirators 
continued to l)uy up gold. Gould took in a partner: 

"Fisk was told that Corbin had enlisted the interests of persons high 
in authority, that tlie President, Mrs. Grant, General Porter, and Gen- 
eral Butterfield were corruptly interested in the movement, and that the 
Secretary of tlie Treasury had been forbidden to sell gold. Though these 
declarutions were wickedly false, as the evidence abundantly shows, yet 



LEADEK AND STATESMAN.— "BLACK FRIDAY" REPORT. 229 

the compounded villainy presented by Gould and Corbin was too tempt- 
ing a bait for Fisk to. resist. He joined the movement at once, and 
brought to its aid all the force of his magnetic and infectious enthusiasm. 
The malign influence which Catiline wielded over the reckless and 
abandoned youth of Eome, finds a fitting parallel in the power which 
Fisk carried into Wall Street, when, followed by the thugs of Erie and 
tlie debauchees of the Opera House, he swept into the gold-room and de- 
fied both the Street and the Treasury. Indeed, the whole gold move- 
ment is not an unwoithy copy of that great conspiracy to lay Rome in 
ashes and deluge its streets in blood, for the purpose of enriching those 
who were to apply the torch and wield the dagger. 

" AVith the great revenue of the Erie Railway Company at their com- 
mand, and having converted the Tenth National Bank into a manufac- 
toiy of certified checks to be used as cash at their pleasure, they terri- 
fied all opponents by the gigantic power of their combination, and amazed 
and dazzled the dissolute gamblers of Wall Street by declaring that they 
had in league with them the chief ofiicers of the National Govei'nment. 

" They gradually pushed the price of gold from one hundred and 
thirty-five and one-half, where it stood on the morning of the thirteenth 
of September, until, on the evening of Wednesday, the twenty -second, 
they held it firm at one hundred and forty and one-half. 

"The conspirators had bought sixty millions of gold up to that date. 
Every thing depended on Grant's preventing the sale of gold by the 
Treasury. Brother-in-law Corbin was to manage that. Every cent ad- 
vance in gold added $15,000 to Corbin's profit. On the 17th, it was de- 
termined to have Corbin write a long letter to the President. 

" The letter contained no reference to the private speculation of Corbin, 
but urged the President not to interfere in the fight then going on be- 
tween the bulls and bears, nor to allow the Secretary of the Treasury to 
do so by any sales of gold. The letter also repeated the old arguments 
in regard to transportation of the crops. 

" While Corbin was writing it, Gould called upon Fisk to furnish his 
most faithful servant to carry the letter. W. 0. Chapin was designated 
as the messenger, and early on the following morning went to JMr. Cor- 
bin's house and received it, together with a note to General Porter. He 
was instructed to proceed with all possible haste, and telegraph Fisk as 
soon as the letter was delivered. He reached Pittsburgh a little after 
midnight, and, proceeding at once by carriage to Washington, Pennsyl- 



230 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAREIELD. 

vania, thirty miles distant, delivered the letter to the President, and, 
af'rer waiting some time, asked if there was any answer. The President 
tiild him tliere was no answer, and he hurried away to the nearest teleo;raph 
office and sent to Mr. Fisk this dispatch : ' Letters delivered all right,' and 
then returned to New York. Mr. Fisk appears to have interpreted the 
'all right' of the dispatch as an answer to the doctrine of the Corbin 
K'tter, and says he proceeded in his enormous purchases upon that suppo- 
sition. This letter, which Corbin had led his co-conspirators to trust 
as their safeguard against interference from Mr. Boutwell, finally jjroved 
their ruin. Its effect Avas the very reverse of what they anticipated. 
The letter would have been like hundreds of other letters received by 
the President, if it had not been for the fact that it was sent by a special 
messenger from New York to Washington, Pennsylvania, the messenger 
having to take a cariiage and ride some twenty-eight miles from Pitts- 
])urgh. This lettei', sent in that W'ay, urging a certain policy oji the ad- 
ministration, taken in connection with some rumors that had got into the 
newspapers at that time as to Mr. Corbin's having become a great bull 
in gold, excited the President's suspicions, and he believed that Mr. 
Corbin must have a pecuniary interest in those speculations ; that he was 
not actuated simply by a desire to see a certain policy carried out for the 
benefit of the administration. Feeling in that way, he suggested to JNIrs. 
Grant to say, in a letter she was writing to Mrs. Corbin, that rumors had 
reached her that Mr. Corbin was connected with speculators in New 
York, and that she hoped that if this Avas so he would disengage himself 
from them at once; that he (the President) w'as very much distressed at 
such rumors. She wrote a letter that evening. It was received in New 
York on the evening of Wednesday, the twenty-second. Late that night 
Mr. Gould called at Corbin's house. Corbin disclosed the contents of the 
letter, and they sat down to consider its significance. Tiiis letter created 
the utmost alarm in the minds of both of these coiispirators. The 
picture of these two men that night, as presented in the evidence, is a re- 
markable one. Shut up in the library, near midnight, Corbin was bend- 
ing over the table and straining witli dim eyes to decipher and read the 
contents of a letter, written in pencil, to his wife, w^hile the great gold 
gaml)ler, looking over his shoulder, caught with his sharper vision every 
word." 

Corbin tried to get Gould to buy him out, so as to tell the Presi- 
dent he had no interest in the market. Gould, too, j)lotted to save 



LEADER AND STATESMAN.— " BLACK FRIDAY" REPORT. 231 

himself by ruining his co-conspirators. They held a meeting. 
Gould secretly sold to Fisk and his as.sociates. The latter, of 
course, had no idea that it Avas Gould they were buying out. The 
meeting resolved to force gold up to 160 on the next day ("Black 
Friday"), publish a list of all firms wlio liad contracts to furnL>^h 
gold, offer to settle with them at the price named before three 
o'clock, but threatening higher prices to all who delayed: 

" While this (le.sperate work was going on in New York, its alarming 
and ruinous effects were reaching and paralyzing the business of 
the whole country, and carrying terror and ruin to thousands. Busi- 
ness men everywhere, from Boston to San Francisco, read disaster 
in every new bulletin. The price of gold fluctuated so rapidly that 
the telegraphic indicators could not keep pace w^ith its movement. The 
complicated mechanism of these indicators is moved by the electric cur- 
rent carried over telegraphic wires directly from the gold-room, and it 
is in evidence that in many instances these wires were melted or burned 
off in the efforts of the operators to keep up with the news. 

"The President returned from Pennsylvania to Washington on Thurs- 
day, the twenty-third, and that evening had a consultation with the Sec- 
retary of the Treasury cdncerning the condition of the gold market. The 
testimony of Mv. Boutwell shows that both the President and himself 
concurred in the opinion that they should, if possible, avoid any inter- 
ference on the part of the Government in a contest where both parties 
were struggling for private gain ; but both agreed that if the price of 
gold should be forced still higher, so as to threaten a general financial 
panic, it would be their duty to interfere and protect the business inter- 
ests of the country. Tlie next morning the price advanced rapidly, and 
telegrams poured into Washington from all parts of the country, exhib- 
iting the general alarm, and urging the Government to interfere, and, if 
possible, prevent a financial crisis. 

At 11 :42 A. M. came the crack of doom. 

Treasury Department, September 24, 18G9. 
"Daniel Butteijield, Assistant Treasurer, United States, New York: 
"Sell four millions (4,000,000) gold to-morrow, and buy four milhons 
(4,000,000) bonds. George S. Boutwell, Sec'y Treasury. 

" Charge to Department. Sent 11 : 42 A. M." 

"Within the space of fifteen minutes the price fell from one hundred 



232 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

aud sixty to one hundred and thirty-three, and in the Uiuguage of one 
of the witnesses, half of Wall Street was involved in ruin. 

" It was not without difficulty that the conspiraU)rs escaped from the 
fury of their victims and took refuge in their up-tuwn stronghold —the 
office of the Erie Railroad Company. 

"During the day and morning previous, the conspirators had succeeded 
in forcing many settlements at rates ruinous to their victims." 

On March 14, 1870, General Garfield spoke on the subject of 
the civil service. The speech abounded in details, and was pointed 
with references to classes of salaries which were too high. On 
April 1st of the same session, he delivered a great speech on the 
tariff question. It was characterized by its conservative avoid- 
ance of extremes, and will stand as the best expression of modern 
scholarship, practical statesmanship on this most imjiortant public 
(juestion. It is probable that there can nowhere l>e found an 
argument on the subject of the tariff which more nearly approaches 
perfect legislative wisdom. 

In 1870, the total amount of national bank circulation being 
limited by law to $300,000,000 and largely absorbed in the East, 
a cry arose in the South and West against this injustice. General 
Garfield drew up and presented a bill which became a law, increasing 
the limit $54,000,000, and providing for the cancellation of the 
surplus of notes in States having more than their (piota, as fast as 
the Southern and Western States, having less than their quota, or- 
ganized national banks and commenced to issue currency. It was 
a just measure, and was exactly in the line of futui'e legislation, 
but the Western and Southern States had no capital to invest for 
banking purposes, and consequently availed themselves but slightly 
of the o})portunity. The measure, however, was of a character to 
allay public clamor, demonstrate the folly of the outcry against the 
existing law, and facilitate the progress toward resumption. It 
was the forerunner of the law, removing all limit to national bank 
circulation, and making the volume of the currency adjustable to 
the demand. General Garfield's great speech on the bill, deliv- 
ered June 7, 1870, has been the inexhaustible quiver from which 
most of the arrows of financial discussion have since been drawn 



LEADEE AND STATESMAN.— HOUSE vs. SENATE. 233 

by all smaller marksmen. A second speech on the same subject 
on June 15th, was but little its inferior. 

The last day of the Forty-First Congress witnessed a remarkable 
attempt of the Senate to encroach upon the constitutional prerog- 
ative of the House to originate all bills for raising revenues, the 
claim being that the measure was one to redace revenue instead of 
raising it. It was a bill to abolish the income tax. Garfield 
favored the reduction, but an encroachment which might become a 
dangerous precedent had to be resisted. His argument covered the 
vast field of the history of the House of Commons, the debates of the 
Constitutional Convention, and the precedents of Congress. His 
conclusions were: 

First. — That the exclusive right of the House of Commons of Great 
Britain to originate money bills, is so old that the date of its origin is 
unknown; it has always been regarded as one of the strongest bulwarks 
of British freedom against usurpation of the King and of the House of 
Lords, and has been guai'ded with the most jealous care; that in the 
many contests which have arisen on this subject between the Lords and 
Commons, during the last three huhdred years, the Commons have never 
given way, but have rather enlarged than diminished their jurisdiction 
of this subject; and that since the year 1678, the Lords have conceded, 
with scarcely a struggle, that the Commons had the exclusive right to 
originate, not only bills for raising revenue, but for decreasing it; not 
only for imposing, but also for repealing taxes; and that the same ex- 
clusive right extended also to all general appropriations of money. 

Second. — The clause of our Constitution, now under debate, was bor- 
rowed from this feature of the British Constitution, and was intended to 
have the same force and effect in all respects as the corresponding clause 
of the British Constitution, with this single exception, that our Senate is 
permitted to offer amendments, as the House of Lords is not. 

Third.—ln addition to the influence of the British example, was the 
further ftict, that this clause was placed in our Constitution to counter- 
balance some special privileges granted to the Senate. It was the com- 
pensating weight thrown into the scale to make the two bianches of 
Congress equal in authoritv and power. It was first put into the C(m- 
stitution to compensate tlie large States for the advantages given to the 
small States in allowing them an equal representation in the Senate; 



234 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

and, when subsequently it was thrown out of the original draft, it came 
near unhinging tlie whole plan. 

"It was reinsei'ted in the last great compromise of the Constitution, to 
offset the exclusive right of the Senate to ratify treaties, confirm appoint- 
ments, and try impeachments. The construction given t(; it by the mem- 
bers of the Constitutional Convention, is the same which this House now 
contends for. The same construction was asserted broadly and fully, by 
the First Congress, many of the members of which were framers of the 
Constitution. It has been asserted again and again, in the various Con- 
gresses, from the First till now; and, though the Senate has often at- 
tempted to invade this privilege of the House, yet in no instance has 
the House surrendered its right whenever that right has been openly 
challenged; and, finally, whenever a contest has arisen, many leading 
Senators have sustained the riu-ht of .tlie House as now contended for. 



"Again, if the Senate may throw their whole weight, political and moral, 
into the scale in favor of the repeal or reduction of one class of taxes, 
they may thereby compel the House to originate bills, to impose new 
taxes, or increase old ones to make up the deficiency caused by the re- 
l)eal begun in the Senate, and thus accomplish by indirection, what the 
Constitution plainly prohibits. What Mr. Seward said in 1856, of the 
encroachment of the Senate, is still more strikingly true to-day. 

"The tendency of the Senate is constantly to encroach, — not only nj> 
on the jurisdiction of the House, but upon the rights of the Chief Ex- 
ecutive of the nation. Tlie power of confirming appointments is rapidly 
becoming a means by which the Senate dictates appointments. The 
Constitution gives to the President the initiative in appointments, as it 
gives to the House the initiative in revenue legislation. Evidences are 
not wanting that both these rights are every year subjected to new inva- 
sions. If, in the past, the Executive has been compelled to give way to 
the pressure, and has, in some degree yielded his constitutional rights, 
ir is all the more necessary that this House stand fii-m, and yield no jot 
or tittle of that great right intrusted to us for the protection of the 
people." 

This speech was absolutely conclusive on the question, and must 
take its place with all the immortal arguments and efforts put 



LEADEK A^'D STATESMAN.— COMMITTEE OF APPROPEIATIOXS. 235 

forth in the past to preserve the rights of the popular branch of 
national legislature. February 20, 1871, General Garfield deliv- 
ered a powerful speech against the McGarraghan claim, one of the 
many jobs of which Congress was the victim. 

General Garfield Mas by this time recognized as the highest au- 
tliority on the intricate subjects of finance, revenue, and expendi- 
ture, in the House. It will be seen that these topics fall within 
the general head of political economy, " the dismal science." Of 
these he was the acknowledged master. Accordingly, at the l)e- 
ginning of the Forty-Second Congress, in 1871, Garfield was made 
chairman of the Committee of Appropriations. It is probable 
that in this capacity he never luid an equal. Something nuist be 
said of his work. 

In order to master the great subject of puljlic expenditures, he 
studied the history of those of European nations. He read the 
''budget speeches" of the English chancellors of the exchequer 
for a long period. He refreshed his German, and studied French, 
in order to read the best works in the world on the subjects, the 
liighest authorities being in those languages. He examined the 
British and French appropriations for a long period. After 
an exhaustive study of the history of foreign nations, he com- 
menced with our own country at the time of the Revolution. 
Charles Sumner was the greatest reader, and had the longest book 
list at the Congressional Library of any man in Washington. The 
library records show that General Garfield's list was next to Sum- 
ner's, being but slightly below it. After Sumner's death, the man 
who was .second became first. This gathering of facts was fol- 
lowed by wide inductions. National expenditures were found by 
him to be subject to a law as fixed as that of gravitation. There 
was a proportion between population, area of country, and the 
necessary outlay for public expenses, which was fixed. Any thing 
beyond this was waste. No covering could hide official I'obbery 
from the reach of such a detective as the establishment of this 
law. Every miscreant left a tell-tale track. 

The results of his studies were embodied in an elaborate speech 



236 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

on Januaiy 22, 1872, in the introduction of his appropriation bill. 
The close study of political economy, however, did not divert him 
from other questions. He kept himself thoroughly versed on every 
(piestiou of public importance and was always equal to every de- 
mand. 

On April 4, 1S71, he delivered a speech in opposition to a Re- 
])ublican bill for the enforcement of the Fourteenth Amendment. 
At the time it brought down upon him the censure of his party. 
But he was firm. There could be no doubt of his loyalty to the 
nation, and his distrust of the malignant South. But he was too 
conservative for the war leaders and politicians. A compromise 
was effected, with which, however, his opponents were much dis- 
satisfied. 

Another notable speech was made on the bill to establish an 
educational fund from the proceeds of the sale of public lands. 
The speech abounded in citations from English, French, and 
German authorities on the subject of education. One doctrine 
enunciated was that matters of education belong to the State gov- 
ernments, not to the nation; that Congress made no claim to inter- 
fere in the method, but only to assist in the work. 

In the summer of 1872, General Garfield undertook a delicate 
mission to the Flat-Head Indians. Tlicir removal wa;. required 
by the Government. But the noble red man refused to stir an inch 
from his ancestral hunting-grounds, Garfield's mission was to be 
the last pacific effort. He was successful wlien the department 
had given up hope in any resource but war. 

On his return from the West, General Garfield fi)und the Credit 
Mobilier scandal loonung up like a cyclone in the Congressional 
sky. Living a life of study, research, and thought, of spotless 
character and the purest intention, he was inexpressibly ]nun(Ml. 
A private letter of December 31, 1872, to his bosom friend Hins- 
dale, is indicative of liis feelings: 

" Tlie Credit Mohilier scandal has given me much pain. As I told 
you last fall, I feared it would turn and that the company itself was a 
bad thing. So I think it will, ami perhaps some nienihcrs of Conuress 
were conscientiously parties to it- [jlans. It has l)een a n(!\v form of trial 



LEADER AND STATESMAN.— CREDIT MOBIIJER. 237 

for me to see my name flying the rounds of the press in connection Avith 
the basest of crimes. It is not enough for one to know that his heart 
and motives have been pure and true, if he is not sure but that good 
men here and there, who do not know him, will set him down among 
the lowest men of doubtful morality. There is nothing in my relation 
to tlie case for which the teuderest conscience of the most scrupulous 
honor can blame me. It is fortunate that I never fully concluded to 
accept tlie offer made me; but it grieves me greatly to have been 
negotiating with a man who had so little sense of truth and honor as to 
use his 2:)roposals for a purpose in a way now apparent to me. I shall 
go before the committee, and in due time before the House, with a full 
statement of all that is essential to the case, so far as I am concerned. 
You and I are now nearly in middle life, and have not yet become 
soured and shriveled with the wear and tear of life. Let us pray to 
be delivered from that condition where life and nature have no fresh, 
sweet sensations for us." 

His correspondence at this time with President Hinsdale, in 
which he uncovers his secret heart, is full of expressions of disgui?t 
with politics, " where ten years of honest toil goes for naught in 
the face of one vote," as he says. Once he declares : " Were it not 
for the Credit Mobilier, I believe I would resign." How plainly 
his character appears in the following little extract : , 

"You know that I have always said that my whole public life was 
an experiment to determine whether an intelligent people would sustain 
a man in acting sensibly on each proposition that arose, and. in doing 
nothing for mere show or for demagogical effect. I do not now remember 
that I ever cast a vote of that latter sort. Perhaps it is true that the 
demagogue will succeed when honorable statesmanship will fail. If so, 
public life is the hollowest of all shams." 

In another letter to Colonel Rockwell, he speaks from his heart : 

"I think of you as away, and in an elysium of quiet and peace, where 
I should love to be, out of the storm and in the sunshine of love and 
books. Do not think from the above that I am despondent. There is 
life and hope and fight in your old friend yet." 

It is hardly possible to understand the tortures which his sensi- 
tive nature underwent at this time. To an honest man the Avorst 



238 LIFE OF JAINIES A. GARFIELD. 

pain comes from the poisoned dagger of mistrust. At a later dav, 
General Garfield Avas to make his defense to his constituents. 

During this plague of heart and brain, there was no remission 
of the enormous activity in the chosen field of finance, revenue, 
and expenditure. But we can only plant foot upon the mountain 
peaks as we pass over the Alps of General Garfield's Congressional 
labors. March 5, 1874, he delivered another great speech on 
"Revenues and Public Expenditures." 

On April 8, 1874, the first great " inflation" bill, by which the 
eifects of the terrible panic of 1873 were to be relieved or cured, 
came up for discussion. General Garfield exhausted history in 
his opposition to the bill. It must be remembered that his con- 
stituents were clamoring for the passage of this bill which was 
to make money plenty. Taking his political life in his hand, he 
fought it with all his power. As in 1866, 1868, 1869, 1870, and 
1871, so, in 1874, he said that " next to the great achievements of 
the nation in putting down the rebellton, destroying its cause, and 
reuniting the Republic on the principle of liberty and equal 
rights to all, is the task of paying the fiibulous expenses of the 
Avar, the funding of the debt, the maintenance of public credit, and 
the launching of the nation on its career of prosperity." The 
speech contains citations of authority against inflation and irre- 
deemable paper currency from John Stuart Mill, Benjamin Frank- 
lin, R. H. Lee, Washington, Adams, Peletiah Webster, Alexander 
Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, Webster, Gouge, Calhoun, and 
Chase. The reader will remember that the measure passed the 
House and the Senate by overwhelming majorities, but was struck 
dead by the veto of President Grant. 

On June 23, 1874, General Garfield spoke at length on the 
subject of appropriations for the year. In this address, as in all 
others upon this topic, he handled figures and statistics with the 
greatest skill and familiarity. The House had come to rely upon 
his annual speech on this subject for its information on the ex- 
penses of the Government. 

Almost at the same time he delivered a speech on the Railway 
Problem. The pending question was upon making certain a])pro- 



LEADER AND STATESMAN.— RAILWAYS. 239 



iminarv 



priations for Eiver, Harbor, and Canal Surveys, as a preli 
to cheaper transportation. General Garfield endeavored to have a 
sl::iilar commission organized on the Railway question. He felt 
that any investigation of cheap transportation M'as lame which did 
not include " the greatest of our modern means of transportation, 
the Railway." We quote a part of his discussion, wdiich must be 
of interest to every reader: 



THE RAILWAY PROBLEM. 



"We are so involved in the events and movements of society that we do 
not stop to realize— what is undeniably true — that during the last forty 
years all modern societies have entered upon a period of change, more 
marked, more pervading, more radical than any that has occurred during 
the last three hundred years. In saying this, I do not f )i-get our own polit- 
ical and military history, nor the French Revolution of 1 793. The changes 
now taking place have been wrought, and are being wrought,' mainly, 
almost wholly, by a single mechanical contrivance, the steam locomo- 
tive. There are many persons now living who well remember the day 
when Andrew Jackson, after four weeks of toilsome travel from his home 
in Tennessee, reached Washington and took his first oath of office as 
President of the United States. On that day, the railway locomotive did 
not exist. During that year, Henry Clay was struggling to make his 
name immortal by linking it with the then vast project of building a 
national road — a turnpike — fri)m the national capital to tlie banks of the 
Mississipiii. 

"In the autumn of that very year George Stephenson ran his first 
experimental locomotive, tlie ' Rocket,' from IMancliester to Liverpool 
and back. The rumble of its wheels, redoubled a million times, is echo- 
ing to-day on every continent. 

"In 1870, there were about 125,000 miles of railroad on the two hem- 
ispheres, constructed at a cost of little less than 8100,000 per mile, an<l 
representing nearly 812,000,000,000 of invested capital. 

"A parliamentary commission found that during the year 1866 the 
railway cars of Great Britain carried an average of 850,000 passengers 
per day ; and during that year the work done by their 8,125 locomotives 
would have required for its jxa-formance three and a lialf million horses 
and nearly two million men. 

"What have our people done for the locomotive, and what has it 



240 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

done for us? To the United States, with its vust territorial area, the 
railroad was a vital necessity. 

"Talleyrand once said to the first Napoleon that 'the -United States 
was a giant without bones.' Since that time our gristle has been rapidly 
hardeniii . Sixty-seven thousand nnles of iron track is a toleral)le 
skeleto.!, even for a giant. When this new power appeared, our i)eo])le 
everywrere felt the necessity of setting it to AVork ; and individuals, 
citie-, States, and the nation lavished their resources without stint to 
ma.ce a pathway for it. Fortunes were sunk under almost every mile 
of our earlier roads in the effort to capture and utilize this new power. 
If the State did not head the subscription for a new road, it usually 
came to the rescue before the work was completed. 

"The lands given by the States and by the national Government to 
aid in the construction of railroads, reach an aggregate of nearly two 
hundred and fifty million acres — a territory equal to nine times the area 
of Ohio. With these vast resources we have made paths for the steam 
giant; and to-day nearly a quarter of a million of our business and work- 
ing men are in his immediate service. Such 'a power naturally attracts 
to its enterprise the brightest and strongest intellects. It would be diffi- 
cult to find in any other profession so large a proportion of men pos- 
sessed of a high order of business ability as those who construct, manage, 
and operate our railroads. 

" The American people have done much for the locomotive ; and it has 
done much for them. We have already seen that it has greatly reduced, 
if not wholly destroyed, the danger that the Government will fall to pieces 
by its own weight. The railroad has not only brought our people and their 
industries together, but it has carried civilization into the wilderness, has 
built up States and Territories, which but for its power would have 
remained deserts for a century to come. ' Abroad and at home,' as Mr. 
Adams tersely declares, 'it has equally nationalized people and cosmop- 
olized nations.' It has played a most important part in the recent 
movement for the unification and preservation of nations. 

"It enabled us to .do what the old military science had pronounced 
impossible — to conquer a revolted population of eleven millions, occu- 
pying a territory one-fifth as large as the continent of Europe. In an 
able essay on the railway system, Mr. Charles F. Adams, Jr., has pointed 
out some of the remarkable achievements of the railroad in our recent 
history. For example, a single railroad track enabled Sherman to main- 



LEADEE AND STATESMAN.— EAILWAYS. 241 

tain eighty thousai)d fighting men three hundred miles beyond his base 
of supplies. Another line, in a space of seven days, brought a reinforce- 
ment of two fully-equipped army corps around a circuit of thirteen hundred 
miles, to strengthen an army at a threatened point. He calls attention 
to the still more striking fact that for ten years past, with fifteen hundred 
millions of our iiidebtedness abroad, an enormous debt at home, unpar- 
alleled public expenditures, and a depreciated paper currency, in defiance 
of all past experience, we have been steadily conquering our difficulties, 
have escaped the predicted collapse, and are promptly meeting our en- 
gagements; because, through energetic railroad development, the country 
has been producing real vvealth, as no country has produced it before. 
Finally, he sums up the case by declaring that the locomotive has 
'dragged the country through its difficulties in spite of itself.' 

''In discussing this theme, we must not make an indiscriminate attack 
upon corporations. The corporation limited to its proper uses is one of 
the most valuable of the many useful creations of law. One class of 
corporations has played a mo.'^t important and conspicuous part in 
securing the liberties of mankind. It was the municipal corporations — 
the free cities and chartered towns— that preserved and developed the 
spirit of freedom during the darkness of the Middle Ages, and power- 
fully aided in the overthrow of the feudal system. The charters of 
London and of the lesser cities and towns of England made the most 
effective resistance to the tyranny of Charles II. and the judicial sav- 
agery of Jeffries. The spirit of the free town and the chartered colony 
taught our own fiithers how to win their independence. The New En- 
gland township was the political unit which formed the basis of most of 
our states. 

"This class of corporations have been most useful, and almost always 
safe, because they have been kept constantly within the control of the 
community for whose benefit they were created. The State has never 
surrendered the power of amending their charters. 

"Under the name of private corporations organizations have grown 
up, not for the perpetuation of a great charity, like a college or hospital, 
not to enable a company of citizens more conveniently to carry on a pri- 
vate industry, but a class of corporations unknown to the early law 
writers has arisen, and to them have been committed the vast powers of 
the railroad and the telegraph, the great instruments by which modern 
communities live, move, and have their being. 
16 



242 ' LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

" Since the dawn of history, the great thoroughfares have belonged to 
tlie people, have been known as the king's highways or the public high- 
ways, and have been open jto the free use of all, on payment of a 
small uniform tax or toll to keep them in repair. But now the most 
perfect and by far the most important roads known to mankind are 
owned and managed as private property by a comparatively small num- 
hev of private citizens. 

" In all its uses the railroad is the most public of all our roads; and 
in all the objects to which its work relates, the railway corporation is as 
public as any organization can be. But in the start it was labeled a 
private corporation ; and, so far as its legal status is concerned, it is now 
grouped with eleemosynary institutions and private charities, and enjoys 
similar immunities and exemptions. It remains to be seen how long 
the community will suffer itself to be the victim of an abstract definition. 

"It will be readily conceded that a corporation is strictly and really 
private when it is authorized to carry on such a business as a private 
citizen may carry on. But when the State has delegated to a coi-poration 
the sovereign right of eminent domain, the right to take from the pri- 
vate citizen, without his consent, a portion of his real estate, to huild its 
structure across farm, garden, and lawn, into and through, over or under, 
the blodis, squares, streets, churches, and dwellings of incurp irated 
cities and towns, across navigable rivers, and over and along public high- 
ways, it requires a stretch of the common imagination and much refine- 
ment and subtlety of the law to maintain the old fiction that such an 
oi'ganization is not a public corporation. 

"In view of the facts already set forth, the question returns, what is 
likely to be the effect of railway and other simihir condiinations upon 
our community and our political institutions? Is it true, as asserted by 
the British writer quoted above, that tlie state must soon recapture and 
control the railroads, or be captured and subjugated by them? Or do 
the phenomena we are witnessing indicate that general breaking-up of the 
social and political order of modern nations so confidently predicted by a 
class of philosophers whose opinions have hitherto made but little impres- 
>i(m on the public mind? 

"The analogy between the industrial condition of society at the pres- 
ent time and the feudalism of the ^Middle Ages is both striking and in- 
structive. 

"In the darkness and chaos of that period the feudal system wa£ the 



LEADER AND STATESMAN.— EAILW AYS. 243 

first important step toward the organization of modern nations. Power- 
ful chiefs and barons entrenched themselves in castles, and in return for 
submission and service gave to their vassals rude protection and ruder 
laws. But as the feudal chiefs grew in power and wealth they became 
the oppressors of their people, taxed and robbed them at will, and finally 
in their arrogance, defied the kings and emperors of the medireval states. 
From their castles, planted on the great thoroughfares, they practiced 
tlie most capricious extortions on commerce and tra*\'el, and thus gave to 
modern language the phrase, ' levy black-mail.' 

" The consolidation of our great industrial and commercial companies, 
the power they Avield and the relations they sustain to the state and to 
the industry of the people, do not fall far short of Fourier's definition of 
commercial or industrial feudalism. The modern barons, more powerful 
than their military prototypes, own our greatest highways and levy tribute 
at will upon all our vast industries. And as' the old feudalism was finally 
controlled and subordinated only by the combined efforts of the kings and 
the people of the free cities and towns, so our modern feudalism can be 
subordinated to the public good only by the great body of the people, 
acting through the government by wise and just laws. 

" I shall not now enter upon the discussion of methods b}' which this 
grand work of adjustment may be accomplished. But I refuse fo believe 
that the genius and energy which have developed these tremendous forces 
will fail to make them, not the masters, but the faithful servants of 
society." 

This chapter has so far been devoted to General Garfield's pub- 
lic life during this period. One would think that what has been 
recounted occupied all his time and powers. Not so. With his 
political and financial studies he kept up his literary life. On 
June 29, 1869, he delivered an oration, before the Commercial 
College in AVashington City, on the " Elements of Success." We 
-select a few thought-flowers from the blooming garden of the ad- 
dress. At the outset he said : 

" I feel a jirofounder reverence for a boy than a man. I never meet a 
ragged boy on the street without feeling that I owe him a salute, for I 
know not what possibilities may be buttoned up under his shabby coat. 
When f meet you in the full flush of mature life, I see nearly all there 
is of you ; but among these boys are the great men of the future — the 



244 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

heroes of the next generation, the philosophers, the statesmen, the phi- 
lanthropists, the great reformers and molders of the next age. There- 
fore, I say, there ia a peculiar charm to me in the exhibitions of young 
people engaged in the business of education." . . . 

Speaking of the modern college curriculum, he said: 

"The prevailing system was established at a time when the learning 
of the world was in Latin and Greek; when, if a man Avould learn 
arithmetic, he must first learn Latin ; and if he would learn the history 
and geography of his own country, he could acquire that knowledge only 
through the Latin language. Of course, in those days it was necessary 
to lay the foundation of learning in a knowledge of the learned lan- 
guages. The universities of Europe, from which our colleges were copied, 
■were founded before the modern languages were born. The leading lan- 
guages of Europe are scarcely six hundred years old. The reasons for a 
course of study then are not good now. The old necessities have passed 
away. We now have strong and noble living languages, rich in litera- 
ture, replete with high and earnest thought, — the language of science, 
religion, and liberty, — and yet we bid our children feed their spirits on 
the life of dead ages, instead of the inspiring life and vigor of our own 
times. 

" The present Chancellor of the British Exchequer, the Right Honor- 
able Robert Lowe, one of the brightest minds in that kingdom, said, in 
a recent address before the venerable University of Edinburgh : ' I was 
a few months ago in Paris, and two graduates of Oxford went with me 
to get our dinner at a restaurant, and if the white-aproned Avaiter had 
not been better educated than all three of us, we might have starved to 
death. We could not ask for our dinner in his language, but fortu- 
nately he could ask us in our own language what we wanted.' There 
was one test of the insufficiency of modern education. 

" Let me beg you, in the outset of your career, to dismiss from your 
minds all idea of succeeding by luck. There is no more common thought 
among young people tlian that foolish one that by-and-by something will 
turn up by which they will suddenly achieve fame or fortune. No, 
young gentlemen; things don't turn up in this world unless somebody 
turns them up. Inertia is one of the indispensable laws of matter, and 
things lie flat where they are until by some intelligent spirit (for noth- 
ing but spirit makes motion in this world) they are endowed with ac- 



I 



LEADER AND STATESMAN.— LITERARY LIFE. 245 

tivity aud life. Luck is au ignis fataus. You may follow it to ruiu, 
but not to success. Tlie great Napoleon, who believed in his destiny, fol- 
lowed it until he saw his star go down in blackest night, when the Old 
Guard perished round hizn, and Waterloo was lost. A j^ound of pluck 
is worth a ton of luck. . . . 

" Poverty is uncomfortable, as I can testify; but nine times out of ten 
the best thing that can hai)i)en to a young man is to be tossed overboard, 
and compelled to sink or swim for himself. In all my acquaintance I 
have never known one to be disowned who was worth saving.- This would 
not be wholly true in any country but one of political equality like ours. 
The editor of one of the leading magazines of England told me, not many 
months ago, a fact startling enough in itself, but of great significance to 
a poor man. He told me that he had never jet known, in all his ex- 
perience, a single boy of the class of fai-m-laborers (not those who own 
farms, but mere farm-laborers) who had ever risen above his class. Boys 
from the manufacturing and commercial classes had risen frequently, but 
from the farm-labor class he had never known one. 

" The reason is this: in the aristocracies of the Old World, wealth 
and society are built up like the strata of rock whicdi compose the crust 
of the eartk If a boy be born in the lowest stratum of life, it is almost 
impossible for him to rise through this hard crust into the higher ranks; 
but in this country it is not so. The strata of our society resembles 
rather the ocean,, where every drop, even the lowest, is free to mingle 
with all others, aud may shine at last on the crest of the highest wave." 

His correspondence is full of glimpses of literary life. At one 
time he breaks into glee over a new book. At another he solemnly 
urges the necessity of his friend Hinsdale and himself mastering 
French aud German. Again ho sighs for more time to read, and, 
with the reader's inconsistency, gives an elaborate c-riticism of some 
book he had just finislictL Once Ije .says: 

^' I can't see that John Stuart Mill ever came to comprehend human 
life as a reality from the actual course of human affairs teginning with 
Greek life down to our oAvn. Men and women were always, with him, 
more or less of the nature of abstractions ; while, v/ith his enormous mass 
of books, he learned a wonderful power of analysis, for which he was by 
aature surprisingly fitted. But his education was narrow just where his 
own mixid was originally deficient. He was educated solely thrnugh 



246 LIFE OF .JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

books; for his father was never a companion. His brothers and sisters 
bored him. He had no playfellows, and of his mother not a ivord in said 
in his autohiogmphy." 

The last fact mentioned must have seemed remarkable to Gar- 
field. In another letter, he says: 

"Permit me to transcribe a metrical version which I made the other 
day of the third ode of Horace's first book. It is still in the rough." 

And then he actually gives a full translation of the poem : " To the 
Ship which carried Virgil to Athens." At the close, he naively 
savs: " I can better most of the verses." Every peep of his private 
life has an exquisite charm. It perpetually surprises one with its 
frankness, its simplicity, and artless affection. In Homer's Hiad, 
the great Hector, clad in dazzling armor and helmet, stoops to kiss 
his child before going forth to mortal combat. But the child drew 
back, afraid of his strange and terrible aspect. Swiftly the father 
removed the panoply of war, and then stooped to the child to be 
received with outstretched arms. In the fierce arena of debate 
we see Garfield clad with the stern helmet and buckler of battle. 
But in his private life he laid aside the armor, and stood forth in 
all the beauty of a grand, simple, and affectionate nature. 

During the period covered by this chapter his home re- 
mained at Hiram, Ohio, where he spent his vacations from 
Congress. Here he lived in a very modest manner, keeping 
neither carriage nor horse, and l>orraA\'ing or hiring when lie 
desired to be conveyed to the I'ailroad station, four miles ofl'. 

Mr. Frederick E. Warren, an attorney, of Cincinnati, Ohio., 
was a student at Hiram College from 1869 to 1875. During 
this time he became acquainted with General Garfield. Of his 
impressions and aequaiutauce he furnisbes a vivacious narra- 
tive. He says: 

"General (/arfield's return liorne was alwn}'^ an event Avith- the college 
boys, by Avhom he was greatly admired and bek)ved. My earliest im- 
pressions of him, as he came one moi-iiing striding up the old plank walk 
that stretched r.cross the c<.>lk>ge campus,, realiiied all that I had heard 



LEADER AND STATESMAN.— EEMINISCENCES. 247 

spoken of him as to lu's appearance and bearing. Even God had seemed 
to set his seal u^^on him, 'to give the world assurance of a man.' Sub- 
sequent acquaintance merely ripened this impression. None of us re- 
quired a formal introduction to him. The boys and he instinctively knew 
each other. He took the stranger cordially by the hand, gave him a 
kindly and encouraging word, and made him feel at once that he was 
his/r/e)ic/, and you may rest assured that the boy was forever his. 

"We learned much from the General's 'talks,' as he styled them. 
Whenever at home, he regularly attended the chapel exercises each 
morning. As soon as the religious services were concluded, he invaria- 
bly was called upon to say something; to give us a 'talk.' He never 
failed to respond. Plis remarks were usually brief, but delightfully in- 
structive, and there was a freshness and novelty which characterized 
them that I have never met with in any other public speaker or teacher. 

" On one occasion, when going to chapel, he saw a horse-shoe lying at 
the side of the path, which he picked up, and carried along with him. 
After prayer, when asked, as usual, to say something to us (I nuist sor- 
rowfully confess that a majority of the boys were impatient of prayers 
when the General Avas about), he produced the horse-shoe, and proceeded 
to explain its history and use from the remotest period, in so entertain- 
ing a manner that I am sui'e that no one who was present has ever for- 
gotten it. At another time he delivered a similar off-hand lecture upon 
the hammer, suggested by one he had found somewhere about the college 
premises. In all he said to the students he was eminently practical, and 
it seemed to us that he could convey more information in fifteen minutes' 
talk than the combined faculty could have done in an hour. 

"The general effect of these frequent brief discourses can readily be 
imagined. The more thoughtful vacated the playground, and gathered 
in groups about the boarding places, to discuss some question of interest 
suggested by the General, or retired to their rooms for reading and 
reflection upon the subject, inspired with a renewed love of knowledge, 
and desire for improvement. 

"His application to business iind study was extraordinary. It ai> 
peared to make no difference at what hour of the day or night one called 
upon him, he would be found in his library at work. If there was a 
'night owl' jjar excellence in Hiram College from the winter of 1869 until 
the winter of 1875, it was myself, yet however late the hour I retired 
might be, I had but to look three doors westward to see the light still burn- 



248 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

ing in General Gai-field's Avindow, and he was nearly always up with the 
sun. It was often asked if he ever slept. 

^^Apropos of this, I am able to recall a very agreeable incident, and 
one highly characteristic of the man. I was reading late one night 
Momssen's ' History of Rome,' and several times came across the word 
'symmachy,' which I failed to find in the English dictionary. Somewhat 
puzzled with its frequent recurrence, and seeing that the General was 
still up, I decided, although it was two o'clock in the morning, to call 
upon him for the meaning of the word. I found him hard at w'ork, and 
after excusing myself for the interruption, explained the object of my 
unseasonable visit. He immediately replied: 'It is coined from the 
Greek, a frequent practice with Momssen;' and taking from a book-case 
a Greek lexicon, he quickly furnished me -with the information I was in 
quest of. He then insisted upon my sitting down, and for a cou23le of 
hours entertained me with an account of a recent trip to Europe. 

"Leaving this topic, he returned to Momssen, whom he pronounced 
eccentric and tedious, and indulged in a lengthy and learned comparison 
between him and Niebuhr. 

" 1 noticed upon his shelves a copy of Bryant's translation of Homer. 
He complained that the book-seller had sent him an imperfect copy, 
there being one hundred and ninety lines at the beginning of the first 
volume omitted thi'ongh the carelessness of the binder. He repeated 
some of the omitted lines, and spoke of them in terms of high critical 
eulogy. It was quite daylight before he allowed me to depart. 

"The General was very peculiar in the discipline of his childi'en. One 
evening an agent for a Ribcock Fire Extinguisher was exhibiting the 
machine on a pile of lighted tarred boxes, on the public square, in the 
presence of a large crowd, c.mong them General Garfield and his little 
son Jim, who is a chip oflT the old block, as the saying is. A gentleman 
accidentally stepped on the boy's foot. He did not yell, as most boys 
might have done under such a pressure, but savagely sprang at the gen- 
tleman and dealt him a blow with his fist somewhere in the region of the 
abdomen, about as high as he could reach. The father observed it, and 
immediately had the crowd open and ordered the fireman to turn the hose 
upon Jim, which was done, and the boy was extinguished in less than a 
minute. 

" AVhen he was in Washington, and we wanted — as frequently happened 
— anv public dcjcuments or any facts to aid us in our society debates, 



'^ 



LEADER AND STATESMAN.— LITEEAEY HABITS. 249 

which were not accessible from any other source, all we had to do was to 
write to the General for them, and it was flattering to us how promptly 
he coniplied with these requests. 

"While apparently of the most amiahle temper, he taught us the duty 
of self-defense, and the right to resist aggression. He was not by any 
means a uou-combatant, and when aroused must have borne some resem- 
blance to an enraged lion. I understand he entered the war as a soldier 
with extraordinary zeal, and the country knows with wliat gallantrv he 
fought its battles. He w^as naturally a belligerent, but discipline, the 
habitual practice of self-command, and a strong religious sense, enabled 
him to keep this warlike disposition tinder perfect control. He was an 
excellent boxer and fencer, a good shot w^ith both rifle and pistol, and 
took a lively interest in all manly exercises. He was a skillful croquet 
player, and enlivened the game with constant conversation, which made 
it a most agreeable pastime to the other players and lookers on." 

Can Liograplij anywhere present a more simple, manly nat- 
ure? Is tliere a better sign of it than to be beloved by col- 
lege boys? 

In AVasbington, up to 1869, be boarded a part of the time, 
and lived in a rented bouse for tbe remainder. In tbat year 
he built tbe comfortable residence on tbe corner of Thirteenth 
and I Streets, opposite Franklin Square, which he continued to 
occupy till his election to the Presidency. The Avbole house 
overflowed with books, but the library was the most charac- 
teristic room. General Garfield's reading was in special fields 
of investigation. At one time he explored and studied the 
entire subject of Goethe and his contemporaries and critics. 
Horace was also the subject of enormous study. Of all that he 
read he made elaborate notes. He made a whole library of 
scrap books, all perfectly indexed. The habit was begun on 
his first entrance into public life. These were supplemented 
by prodigious diaries. Probably no man ever left such a 
complete record of his intellectual life upon paper. In addi- 
tion to all this, he kept a series of labeled drawers, in which 
were filed away newspaper cuttings, items, pamphlets, and 
documents. This collection was most carefully classified and 



250 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

indexed by subjects. It is easy to see why Garfield was known 
as the best posted and readiest man in Congress. His mar- 
velous memory and splendid system enabled him, on short 
notice, to open the drawer containing all the material on al- 
most any subject, and equip liimself in an hour for battle. Ko 
encyclopedia could compare in value with this collection to 
its owner. It made Garlield absolutely terrible in debate. A 
charge would be made, a liistorical reference indicated by 
some poorly-posted antagonist; at the next session Garfield 
was on hand with the documents to overwhelm his opponent. 

Among the many literary and other miscellaneous addresses 
delivered during this period, was one of N^ovember 25, 1870, 
before the Army of the Cumberland, on the "Life and Char- 
acter of George H. Thomas," and one on " The Future of 
the Republic," delivered July 2d, 1873, before the students 
of Hudson College. From the former we give extracts, 
although to give any thing less than the entire address is 
spoliation. As an argument defending Thomas from Robert 
E. Lee's charge of disloyalty, it is overwhelming. Garfield 
loved Thomas as a brother; and with the. dead hero for a 
theme, the orator rose to the loftiest heights. Among his 
opening remarks were the following: 

"There are now living not less than two hundred thousand men who 
served under the eye of General Thomas; who saw him in sunshine and 
storm — on the march, in the figlit, and on the field when the victory had 
been won. Enshrined in the hearts of all these, are enduring images and 
most precious memories of their commander and fiiend. Who shall col- 
lect and unite into one worthy picture, the bold outlines, the innumerable 
lights and shadows which make up the life and character of our great 
leader? Who shall condense into a single hour the record of a life which 
forms so large a chapter of the Nation's history, and whose fame fills and 
overfills a hemisphere? No line can be omitted, no false stroke made, no 
imperfect sketching done, which you, his soldiers, will not instontly de- 
tect and deplore. I know that each of you here present sees him in 
memory at this moment, as we often saw him in life; erect and strong, 
like a tower of solid masonry; his broad, square shoulders and massive 
head; his abundant hair and full beard of light brown, sprinkled with 



LEADEK AND STATESMAN.— TRIBUTE TO THOMAS. 251 

silver; bis broad forebead, full flice, and features that would appear 
colossal, but for tbeir })erfect barmouy of proportion; bis clear com- 
plexion, vvitb just enougb color to assure you of ^robust bealtb and a well- 
regulated life ; bis face ligbted up by an eye which was cold gray to his 
enemies, but warm', deep blue to his friends; not a man of iron, but of 
live oak. His attitude, form, and features, all a.ssured you of inflexible 
firmness, of inexpugnable strength ; while his welcoming smile set every 
feature aglow with a kindness that won your manliest affection. If thus 
in memory you see his form and features, even more vividly do you re- 
member the qualities of his mind and heart. His body was the fitting 
type of his intellect and character ; and you saw both bis intellect and 
character tried, again and again, in the fiery furnace of war, and by other 
tests not less searching. Thus, comrades, you see him; and your mem- 
ories supply a thousand details which complete and adorn the picture." 

In closing what might he called more particularly the hio- 
graphical portion of the address he said: 

"Thomas's life is a notable illustration of the virtue and power of hard 
work; and in the last analysis the power to do hard work is only another 
name for talent. Professor Church, one of his instructors at West Point, 
says of his student life, that ' he never allowed any thing to escape a 
thorough examination, and left nothing behind that he did not fully com- 
prehend.' And so it was in the army. To him a battle was neither an 
earthquake nor a volcano, nor a chaos of brave men and frantic horses, 
involved in vast explosions of gunpowder. It was rather a calm, rational 
concentration of force against force. It was a question of lines and posi- 
tions ; of weight of metal and strength of battalions. He knew that the 
elements and forces which bring victory are not created on the battle- 
field, but must be patiently elaborated in the quiet of the camp, by the 
perfect organization and outfit of his army. His remark to a captain of 
artillery, while inspecting a battery, is Avorth remembering, for it exhibits 
his theory of success : ' Keep every thing in order, for the fate of a battle 
may turn on a buckle or a linch-pin.' He understood so thoroughly the 
condition of his army, and its equipment, that when the hour of trial 
came, he knew how great a pressure it could stand, and how hard a blow 
it could strike. 

"His character was as grand and as simple, as a colossal pillar of chis- 
eled granite. Every step of his career as a soldier was marked by the 
most loyal and unhesitating obedience to law — to the laws of his govern- 



252 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAKFIELD. 

ment and to the cojiimands of liis superiors. The obedience which he 
rendered to those above him he rigidly required of those under his 
command. 

"His influence over his troops grew steadily and constantly. He won 
his ascendancy over thcni, neitlier by artifice nor by any one act of 
special daring, but he gradually filled them with his own spirit, until 
their confidence in him knew no bounds. His power as a commander 
was developed slowly and silently; not like volcanic land lifted from the 
sea by sudden and violent upheaval, but rather like a coral island, where 
each iucreuient is a growth — an act of life and work. 

"Power exhibits itself under two distinct forms — strength and force — 
each possessing peculiar (qualities, and each perfect in its own sphere. 
Strength is typified by the oak, the rock, the mountain. Force em- 
bodies itself in the cataract, the tempest, the thunderbolt. The great 
tragic poet of Greece, in describing the punishment of Prometheus for 
rebellion against Jupiter, represented Vulcan descending from heaven, 
attended by two mighty spirits, Strength and Force, by whose aid he 
held and hound Prometheus to the rock. 

"Ill subduing our great rebellion, the Republic called to its aid men 
who represented many forms of great excellence and power. A \ei-y' 
few of our commanders possessed more force than Thomas — more genius 
for planning and executing bold and daring enterprises; but, in my judg- 
ment, no other was so complete in embodiment and incarnation of 
strength — the strength that resists, maintains, and endures. His power 
was not that of the cataract which leaps in fury dovv'n the chasm, but 
rather that of the river, broad and deep, whose current is steady, silent, 
and irresistible." 

From the peroration tlie following is taken: 

"The language applied to the Iron Duke, by th(^ historian of the 
Peninsular War, might also he mistaken for a description of Thomas. 
Napier says: 

"'He held his army in hand, kee])iiig it, Avitli unmitigated labor, 

always in a fit state to inarch or to fight Sometimes he wms 

indebted to fortune, sometimes to his natural genius, always to his un- 
tiring industry ; fiir he was emphatically a painstaking man.' 

"The language of Lord Brougham, addressed to Wellington, is a fit- 
ting description of Thomas: 

"'Mighty captain! who never advanced except to cover his arms with 



LEADEE AND STATESMAN.— TRIBUTE TO THOMAS. 253 

glory; mightier captain! Avho never retreated except to eclipse the glory 
of his advance.' 

"If I remember correctly, no enemy -was ever able to fight Thomas 
out of any position he undertook to hold, 

"On the whole, I can not doubt that the most fitting parallel to Gen- 
eral Thomas is found in our greatest American, the man who was 'first 
in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.' The 
peisonal resemblance of General Thomas to Washington was often the 
sul)jt'ct of remark. Even at West Point, Rosecrans was accustomed to 
call him General Washington. He resembled Washington in the gravity 
and dignity, of his character; in the solidity of his judgment; in the 
careful accuracy of all his transactions ; in his incorruptible integrity, 
and in his extreme, but unaffected, modesty. 

"But his career is ended. Struck dead at his post of duty, a be- 
reaved nation bore his honored dust across the continent and laid it to 
rest on the banks of the Hudson, amidst the tears and grief of millions- 
The nation stood at his grave as a mourner. No one knew until he was 
dead how strong was his hold on the hearts of the American people. 
Every citizen felt that a pillar of state had fallen; that a great and 
true and pure man had passed from earth. 

"There are no fitting words in which I may speak of the loss which 
every member of this society has sustained in his death. 

"The general of the army has beautifully said, in his order announc- 
ing the death of Thomas: 

" 'Though he leaves no child to bear his name, the Old Army nf the 
Cumberland, numbered by tens of thousands, called him father, and will 
weep for him in tears of manly grief.' 

" To us, his comrades, he has left the rich legacy of his friendship. 
To his country and to mankind, he has left his character and his fame 
as a priceless and everlasting possession. 

"'O iron nerve to true occasion true! 

O fallen at length that tower of strength 

Which stood four-square to all the winds that blewl' 

'His work is done; 

But while the races of mankind endure, 

Let his great example stand 

Colossal seen of every land, 

And keep the soldier firm, the statesman pure, 

Till in all lands and through all human story, 

The path of Duty be the way to Glory.'" 



254 LIFE OF JAME8 A. GARFIELD. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE NOONTIDE. 

In troublous times when tides and winds blew high, 

And one stood peerless in the public gaze, 

A sentinel upon the battlements 

Of state, the babbling miscreants said, Go to ! 

Let us assail him ! 

JAMES ABKAM GARFIELD was an honest man. You 
could not have known him and thought otherwise; you can 
not know the story of his life, and think him ever dishonored. 
His character was as clear as crystal; truth illumined his soul al- 
way, and there the shadows of insincerity never fell. 

Nevertheless, General Garfield could not escape the slime of the 
mud-slingers. Charges w^ere made against him which, if true. 
Mould have made our Hyperion a degraded and filthy Satyr. 

The time has come when Garfield's character needs no defense. 
To-day the whole world believes in him. When the Inu-ricane 
came he boldly and successfully vindicated himself Tlien the 
people ratified his declarations by their suffrages. Finally, History 
has set her great seal upon the judgment in his favor. 

The three principal accusations made against Mr. Garfield were 
in their day known respectively as the Credit MoblUcr Steal, the 
Salary Grab, and the De Gollycr Bribery. A formidable array ! 

There was a time when the biographer of Garfield would have 
been forced to devote a volume to these charges in order to refute 
them. Now a few pages will suffice ; and their chief purpose, in- 
deed, must only be to show how Garfield himself treated them. 

The charges all came upon him at once. When elected to Con- 
gress in 1872, for the sixth time, Garfield seemed to have a life 
estate in his office. Before the next election came, it looked as 
if he never could be elected again. 



THE NOOXTIDE.— THE CKEDIT MOBILIER. 255 

In tlie printer of 1872-3, came the Credit Mobilier exposure; 
early in '73, followed the Salary Grab; and finally, in 1874, the 
De Gollyer scandal appeared. 

These troubles were met in the only way that could have suc- 
ceeded, and also in the only way possible to Garfield's nature — 
openly and manfully. Writing to his friend Hinsdale, he said : 
" The district is lost, and as soon as I can close up affairs here I 
am coming home to capture it." 

While at Washington, in 1873, he prepared two exhaustive 
pamphlets — one entitled "Eeview of the Transactions of the 
Credit Mobilier Company," and the other "The Increase of 
Salaries." These papers, and the general discussions which were 
going on at the same time, threw much light on the subjects. 
But the opportunity was too good for politicians to lose, and it 
was only after a desperate struggle that Mr. Garfield was renom- 
inated and reelected in 1874. 

But the victory was gained, and from that time on the Reserve 
never ceased to grow stronger, year by year, in faith in General 
Garfield. 

Instead of a reproduction of the extensive literature on these 
subjects, which political necessities alone occasioned, it will suf- 
fice here to quote from a speech which in brief covered the whole 
field. This address was made to his constituents, at Warren, O., 
on September 19, 1874. September 19 — anniversary of Chicka- 
mauga, and of the day of his death ! 

The reply proper began thus: 

"There are three things which I propose to discuss; two of them may 
hardly be said to refer to my public career, one of them directly to my 
official work. The first one I refer to is my alleged connection with 

THE CREDIT MOBILIER. 

" There is a large number of peojile in the United States who use these 
words without any adequate idea of what they mean. I have no doubt 
that a great many people feel about it very much as the fishwoman at Bil- 
lingsgate market felt when Sidney Smith, the great humorist of England, 
came along and began to talk with her. She answered back in a very 



•2oG LIFE OF JAMES A. GAKFIELD. 

saucv way, and be finally commenced to call her mathematical names ; 
he called her a parallelogram, a hypothenuse, a parallelopipedon, and 
other such Xerms, a-nd she stood back aghast and said she never beard 
such a nasty talking man in lier life — never was abused so before. Now 
])eo})le think they have said an enormous thing when they say that 
somebody had something to do with \,he Credit Mobilier. I ask your 
attention just for a few moments to what that thing is, and in the 
next place to understand precisely what it is that I am supposed to have 
had to do with it. 

" The Credit Mobilier was a corporation chartered in 1859 by the State 
of Pennsylvania, and authorized to build bouses, buy lands, loan money, 
etc. Nothing of consequence was done with that company until the year 
1867, when a number of men bought up whatever stock there was in it, 
and commenced to do a very large business. In the winter of 1867, Mr. 
Train came to me and showed me a list of names and subscribers to the 
stock of the Credit Mobilier Company, and asked me to subscribe $1,000. 
I should say there were fifteen or twenty members of Congress on the 
list, and many more prominent business men. He said that the com- 
pany was going to buy lands along the lines of the Pacific Eailroad at 
places where they thought cities and villages would grow up, and to de- 
velop them, hnd he had no doubt that the growth of the country would 
make that investment double itself in a very short time. 

"That was the alleged scheme that the Credit Mobilier Company had 
undertaken — a thing that if there is any gentleman in Warren who would 
feel any hesitancy in buying, it would be because he didn't believe in the 
growth of tlie countiy where the business was to be done. That stock 
Avas oflTered to me as a plain business proposition, with no intimation what- 
ever that it was offered because the subscribers were members of Con- 
gress, for it was offered to many other people, and no better men lived 
than at least a large number of the gentlemen to whom it was offered. 
Some of them took it at once. Some men are cautious about making an 
investment; others are quick to determine. To none of those men was 
any explanation made that this Credit Mobilier Company was in any way 
connected with a ring of seven men who owned the principal portion of 
the stock and who had contracted with the directors of the Union Pa- 
cific road for building six or seven hundi'ed miles at an extravagant price, 
largely above wdiat the work was worth. That was a secret held only by 
tliose seven men who owned the principal portion of the stock. It is 



THE NOONTIDE.— THE CREDIT MOBILIER 2o< 

now understood that Mr. Oukes Ames, who was the center of tlie com- 
jniny of seven men, sought to gain the friendship of fifteen or twenty 
proniiuent Congressmen wjth the view of protecting himself and the Pa- 
cific Railroad against any investigations which might he made; l)ut it 
Avas a necessary part of his plan not to divulge that purpose or in any 
way to intimate to them that he miglit draw upon them for favors. 

"Long before any such purpose was realized, long before any pressure' 
came upon Mr. Ames, most of the men who had been invited to purchase 
that stock had either declined to purchase or had purchased and realized,, 
or had purchased and sold out. But in 1872, in the midst of the Pres- 
idential campaign, an article was published in the public journals charg- 
ing that sixteen prominent members of Congress — Senators and Repre- 
sentatives — had sold their votes for money or stock; that they had' 
accepted bribes. You remember that I was running for Congress in this- 
district at that time. When that news came I was away in the Rocky 
Mountains. I came home, and the first day after my arrival at Wash- 
ington I authorized to be published a statement concerning what I knew 
about the Oakes Ames business. A great many people suppose now audi 
say — and it has been repeated a hundred times in this district, and 
especially in this town during the last two weeks — that Mr. Garfield hedged 
and denied any knowledge of the Credit Mobilier business, until finally 
the investigation brought it out. I repeat that immediately on my ar- 
rival in Washington I made a statement to the correspondent of the Cin- 
cinnati Gazette, of which the following is a copy : 

" 'Washington, Sejitember 15, 1872. 
" 'GeneralGarfield, who has just arrived here from the Indian country, 
has to-day the first opportunity of seeing the charges connecting his 
name with, receiving shares of the Credit Mobilier from Oakes Ames. 
He authorizes the statement that he never subscribed for a single share 
of the stock, and that he never received or saw a share of it. When the 
company was first formed, George Francis Train, then active in it, 
came to Washington and exhibited a list of subscribers, of leading capi- 
talists and some meml)ers of Congress, to the stock of the company. The 
subscription was described ns a popular one of ^1,000 cash. Train urged 
General Garfield to subscribe on two occasions, and each time he declined. 
Subsequently he was again informed that the list was nearly completed, 
but that a chance remained for him to subscribe, when he again declined,. 



258 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

and to this day he has not subscribed for or received any share of stock 
or bond of the company.' 

" Now I want my audience to understand that in the midst of that 
storm ;tnd tempest of accusation, and only a little wliile before the elec- 
tion, I started it and let it go broadcast to the daily press, that I did 
know something about the Credit Mobilier ; that I had on two occasions 
discussed the matter ; that I had taken it into consideration, and that 
finally I had declined to subscribe; that I never had owned or held a 
sliare ; had never seen a certificate of the stock. Now, I am not asking 
you at this moment, to discuss the truth of that statement, but only to say 
that I stated it long before there was any investigation talked of; that I 
never dodged or evaded or denied having knowledge on the subject, but 
at the first declared plainly and finally what I did know about it. 

" When Congress met, Speaker Blaine and the rest of us whose names 
were concerned in it, at once, on the first morning of the session, de- 
manded a committee of investigation to go through with the whole sub- 
ject from beginning to end. I want those gentlemen who talk about 
Mr. Garfield being got after by conmiittees of investigation to know that 
no investigation into any public aflair has been held in the last three 
years in Washington that I have not helped to organize and bring about. 
[Applause.] 

THE COMMITTEE OF INVESTIGATION. 

"Now what was the investigation? You will remember that beforf-, 
the investigati(m had gone far a feeling of alarm and excitement swept 
over the whole country that has hardly been paralleled in American his- 
tory. Some men whose names were connected with the charges of the 
Credit Mobilier matter, shocked at the terrible charge of bribery thrown 
at them, in the hurry of the moment so far forgot themselves as to give 
equivocal answers as to whether they knew any thing about the matter 
or not, and the impression was made throughout the country that most of 
them had denied that they knew any thing about it. The fact was that 
the country was settling down to the belief that the whole thing vras a 
mere campaign slander, and had no foundation in fact. Looking at the 
subject from this distance, I am inclined to believe that the impression 
left upon the American mind is that the faults of those who were chiwged 
with buying stock was not that they did any thing wrong in reference to 
the stock, but that afterwards they prevaricated, or lied about it. Now, 



THE NOONTIDE. —THE CEEDIT MOBILIER. 259 

without discussing any body else, I call you to witness that I stated at 
once u hat I knew about it the first time that I knew the thing was going 
tlie rounds of the newspapers. When the committee of investigation 
came to make up 

THEIR REPORT 

there was one thing in that report to which I personally took exception, 
and (mly one. I understand that a gentleman occupied this room a few 
nights ago who undertook to make the impression upon his audience that 
Mr. Garfield was found guilty of some improper relation with the Credit 
Mobilier. Let jne read you a sentence or two fiom that report. The 
committee say : 

"Concerning the members to whom he had sold or offered to sell 
the sti^ck, the committee say that they ' do not find that Mr, Ames, in 
his negotiations with the persons above named, entered into any detail 
of the relations between the Credit Mobilier Compan}^ and the Union 
Pacific Company, or gave them any specific information as to the amount 
of dividends they would be likely to receive further than has been al- 
ready stated, viz., that in some cases he had guaranteed a profit of ten 
per cent. .... They do not find as to the members of the pres- 
efit House above named, that they -were aware of the object of Mr. Ames, 
or that they had any other purpose in taking this stock than to make a 
profitable investment. . . . They have not been able to find that any 
of these members of Congress have been affected in their official action 
in consequence of interest in the Credit Mobilier stock. . . . They do 
not find that either of the above-named gentlemen, in contracting with 
Mr. Ames, had any corrupt motive or purpose himself, or was aware 
that Mr. Ames had any. Nor did either of them suppose he was guilty 
of any impropriety or even indelicacy in becoming a purchaser of this 
stock.' And, finally, ' that the committee find nothing in the conduct or 
motives rf either of these members in taking this stock, that cnlls for 
any recommendation by the conynittee of the House.' (See pp. viii, ix, x.) 

" In Mr. Ames's first testimony he names sixteen members of CVm- 
gress to whom he offered the stock, and says that eleven of them bought 
it, but he sets Mr. Garfield down among the five who did not buy it. 

"He says: 'He (Garfield) did not pay for it or receive it. . . He 
never paid any money on that stock or received money on account (jf 
it.' Let me add that the last grant to the Union Pacific Railroad was 



2G0 • LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

hy the act of Ju^-y, 1864, and that Oakes Ames had nothing to do with 
the Credit MobiHer till more than two years after that date. 

"The point to which I took exception to the report of the committee 
was this: the report held that Mr. Ames and Mr. Garfield did agree 
upon the purchase of the stock, and that Mr. Garfield received three hun- 
dred and twenty-nine dollars on account of it. I insisted that the evi- 
dence did not warrant that conclusion, and rose in my place in the House, 
and announced that I should make that statement good before the Amer- 
ican public; that I held myself responsible to demonstrate that the 
committee was wrong; that although they charged me with no wrong, 
they still had made a mistake of fact, which was against the evidence 
and an injustice to me. Soon after, I published a pamphlet of twenty- 
eight pages, in which I carefully and thoroughly reviewed all the testi- 
mony relating to me. I have now stood before the American people, 
since the eighth day of May, 1873, announcing that the following pro- 
positions were proven concerning myself: that I had never agreed even to 
take the stock of Mr. Ames; that I never subscribed for it, never did 
take it, never received any dividends from it, and was never in any way 
made a beneficiary by it. Seven thousand copies of that pamphlet have 
been distributed through the United States. Almost every newspaper 
in the United States has had a copy mailed to it. Every member of 
the Forty-Second Congress — Democrat and Republican — had a copy, and 
there is not known to me a man who, having read my review, has de- 
nied its conclusiveness of those propositions after having read them. I 
have seen no newspaper review of it that denies the conclusiveness of 
the propositions. It is for these reasons that a great public journal, the 
New York Evening Post, said a few days ago that on this point ' General 
Garfield's answer had been received by the American people as satisfac- 
tory.' [Applause.] If there is any gentleman in this audience, who de- 
sires to ask any question concerning the Credit Mobilier, I shall be glad I 
to hear it. [No response.] If not, would it not be about as well to ! 
modify the talk on that subject hereafter? [Applause.] ': 

"Now the next thing I shall mention is a question purely of official i 

conduct — and that is a subject which has grown threadbare in this com- j 

munity, and yet I desire your attention to it for a few moments. I refer to ! 

THE INCREASK OF OFFICIAL SALARIES, 

one year and a half ago. First,, what are the acrtisations eoncerning me? ] 



THE XOOXTIDE.-TIIE SALAIIY GRAB. 261 

"There are several citizens in tris town who have signed their names 
to statements in the newspapers during that discussion, dechiring that Mr. 
Garfield had committed a theft, a robbery; that, to use the plain Saxon 
word, he was a thief, — that any man who took, or votetl lor a retroactive 
increase of salary, was a thief. In one of these articles it was argued in 
this wise: 'If I hire a clerk in my bank on a certain salary, and he, 
having the key to my safe, takes out five hundred or five thousand dollars 
more than we agreed for, and puts it in his pocket, it is simply theft or 
robbery. He happened to have access to the funds, and he got hold of 
them; so did Congress. You can't gloss it over,' says the writer, 'it is 
robbery.' 

''Now% fellow-citizens, I presume you will ngree that you can wrong 
even the devil himself, and tliat it is not rijiht or manly to lie, even about 
Satim. I take it for granted that we are far enough past the passion of 
that period to talk plainly and coolly about the inci-ea?^e of salaries. 

"Now, in the first place, I say to-night, what I have said through all 
this tempest that for a Congress to increase its own pay and make it retro- 
active, is not theft, is not robbery, and you do injustice to the truth when 
you call it so. There is ground enough in w'hich to denounce it without 
straining the truth. Now if Congress can not fix its own salary, who 
can? The Constitution of your country says, in unmistakable w'ords, 
that 'Senators and Representatives shall receive a compensation, to be 
ascertained by law, and paid out of the Natiojial Treasury.' Nobody 
makes the law but Congress. It was a very delicate business in the be- 
ginning, for our fathers to jnake a law^ paying themselves money. They 
understood it so, and wdieu they sent the Constitution out to the several 
States, the question was raised, whether it would not be better to put a 
curb upon* Congress in reference to their own pay ; and in several of the 
States suggestions were sent in. When the First Congress met, James 
Madison offered seventeen amendments to the Constitution; nnd, finally, 
Congress voted to send twelve of the proposed amendments to the countiy : 
one of them was this: 'No law^ varying the compensation of the Senators 
or Representatives in Congress shall take effect until an election has inter- 
vened.' In other words, the First Congress proposed that an amendment 
should be made to the new Constitution, that no Congress could raise its own 
pay, and make it retroactive. That was sent to the States for theii- ratifica- 
tion. The States arlojited ten of those amendments. Two, they rejected; 
and this was one of the two. They said it should not be in the Consti- 



262 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

tution. The reason given for its rejection, by one of the wisest men of 
that time, was this. He said: ' If we adopt it, this may happen; one 
party will go into powet- in a new Congress, but, just before the old Con- 
gress expires, the defeated party may pass a law reducing the pay of 
Congressmen to ten cents a day.' 

" It will never do thus to put one Congress into the powder of another, 
it would be an engine of wrong and injustice. For this reason, our 
fatliers refused to put into the Constitution a clause that would prevent 
back pay. Now it will not do to say that a provision that has been de- 
liberately rejected from the Constitution, is virtually there, and it will 
not do to say that it is just to call it theft and robbery for Congress to 
do what it has plainly the constitutional right to do. I use the word 
right in its legal sense. 

"Now, take another step. I hold in my hand here, a record of all 
the changes of pay that have been made since this Government was 
founded, and in every case, — I am not arguing now that it is right at 
all, I am only giving you a history of it — in every single instance when 
Congress has raised its pay, it has raised it to take effect from the first 
day of the session of the Congress. Six times Congress has increased 
its own pay, and every time it made the pay retroactive. I say again, 
I am not arguing that this was right and proper; I am only arguing 
that it was lawful and cooistitutional to do it. In 1856, the pay was raised, 
and was made retroactive, for a year and four months, and the member 
of Congress from this district threw the casting vote that made it a law. 
That act raised the pay by a larger per cent, than the act of last Congress. 
Joshua R. Giddings was the one-hundredth man that voted aye. Nine- 
ty-nine voted no. Joshua R. Giddings's vote the other way would have 
turned the score against it. That vote gave back pay for a year and four 
months. That vote gave Congress nine months' back pay for a time when 
members would not have been entitled to any thing whatever, because, 
under the old law, they were paid only during the session. What did 
this district do ? Did it call him a thief and a robber ? A few weeks 
after that vote this district elected him to Congress for the tenth time. 
Have the ethics of the world changed since 1856? Would I be a thief 
and robber in 1873, if I had done what my predecessor did in 1856? 
In 1866, the pay was raised; that time it was put ih the appropriation 
Mil (a very important appropriation bill), a bill giving bounties to sol- 
diers. It passed through the Senate and came to the House; there was 



THE NOONTIDE.— THE SALARY GRAB. 263 

a disagreement about it. Senator Sherman, of Ohio, had charge of the 
bill in the Senate, and voted against the increase of pay every time when 
it came up on its own merits, but he was out-voted. Finally it went to 
a committee of conference, and he was made chairman of the committee 
of conference. The conference report between the two houses was made 
in favor of the Ijill. ^Ir. Sherman brought in the report, saying when 
he brought it in, that, he had been opposed to the increase of pay, but 
the Senate had overruled him. He voted for the conference report, voted 
for the final passage of the bill. That bill gave back pay for a year and 
five months. Was John Sherman denounced as a thief and robber for 
that? AVas Benjamin F. Wade called a thief and robber? 

" At that time I was not chairman of the committee, and had no other 
responsibility than that of an individual representative. I voted against 
the increase of salary then ; at all stages I voted against the conference 
report, but it passed through the House on final vote by just one major- 
ity. I don't remember that any body ever praised n)e, particularly, for 
voting against that report, and I never heard any body blaming John 
Sherman for voting for it. 

" Now, in 1873, the conditions were exactly the reverse. I was chair- 
man of tlie committee that had charge of the great appropriation bill. 
There was put upon that bill, against my earnest protest, a proposition 
to increase salaries. I take it there is no one here who will deny that 
I worked as earnestly as I could to prevent the putting of that increase 
upon the bill. I did not work against it because it was a theft or robbery 
to put it on there; I worked against it because I thought it was indecent,, 
unl)ecoming, and in the highest degree unwise and injudicious to increase 
the salaries at that time. First, because tiiey had been increased in 1866, 
and in proportion to other salaries, Congressmen were paid enough — paid 
more in proportion than most other officials were paid. Second*, the glory 
of the Congress had been that it was bringing down the expenditures of 
the Government, from the highest level of war to the lowest level of 
peace; and that if we raised our own salaries, unless the rise had been 
made before, it would be the key-note on which the whole tune of extrav- 
agance would be sung. I believed, too, that it w^ould seriously injure the 
Republican party, and on that score I thought we ought to resist it. I 
did all in my pcwer to prevent that provision being added to the liill. 
I voted against it eighteen times. I spoke against it, but by a very lai-ge 
vote in the House, and a still larger vote in the Senate, the salary clau.^e 



264 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

Avas put upon the bill. I was captain of the ship, and this objectionable 
fVeight had been put upon my deck. I had tried to kee]) it off. What 
should I do? Burn the ship? Sink her? Or, having washed my hands 
of the responsibility for that part of her cargo I had tried to keep off, 
navigate her into port, and let those who had put this freight on be 
responsible for it? Using that figure, that W'as the course I thought it 
my duty to adopt. Now on that matter I might have made an error of 
judgment. I believed then and now that if it had been in my power to 
kill this bill, and had thus brought on an extra session, I believe to-day, 
I say, had I been able to do that, I should have been the worst blamed 
man in the United States. Why? During the long months of the 
extra session that would have followed, with the evils which the country 
would have felt by having its business disturbed by Congress, and the 
uncertainties of the result, men would have said all this has come about 
because we did not have a man at the head of the Committee on Appro- 
priations with nerve enough and force enough to carry his bill through 
by the end of the session. The next time we have a Congress, we had 
better see if we can not get a man who will get his bills tlirough. Sup- 
pose I had answered there was that salary increase- — ' That won't do. 
You had shown your hand on the salary question ; you had protested 
against it and you had done your duty.' Then they would have said, 
there were six or seven sections in that bill empowering the United States 
to bring the railroads before the courts, and make them account for their 
extravagance. They would have said we have lost all that by the loss 
of this bill, and I would have been charged with acting in the interest 
of railroad corporations, and fighting to kill the bill for that reason. But 
be that as it may, fellow-citizens, I considered the two alternatives as 
well as I could. I believed it would rouse a storm of indignation and ill 
feeling throughout the country if that increase of salary passed. I be- 
lieved it would result in greater evils if the whole failed, and an extra 
session came on. For a little while I was tempted to do what would 
rather be pleasing than what would be best in the long run. I believe 
it required more courage to vote as I voted, than it would to have voted 
the other way, but I resolved to do what seemed to me right in the case, 
let the consequences be what they would. [Applause.] I may liavc 
made a mistake in judgment; I blame no one for thinking so, but 1 fol- 
l^iwed what I thought was the less bad of two courses. My subsequent 
conduct was consistent with ray action on the bill. 



• THE NOONTIDE.— THE SALARY GRAB. 265 

" I did not myself parade the fact, but more than a year ago tlic New 
York World j^ublished a list, stating in chronological order the Senators 
and Eepresentatives who covei-ed their back pay into the Treasury. My 
name was first on the list. [Applause.] 

"I ai)peal to the sense of justice of this people, whether they will 
tolerate this sort of political waifare. It has been proven again and 
again that I never drew the back pay, never saw a dollar of it, and tookt 
no action iu reference to it except to sign an order on the sei'geant-at- 
arms to cover it into the general Treasury, and this was done before the 
convention at Warren. I say more. Some of these men who have been 
so long pursuing mo, Imve known these facts for many months. During 
the stormy times of the salaiy excitement, a citizen of this county wrote 
a letter to a jDrominent official in the Treasury of the United States, 
wanting to know whether Mr. Garfield drew his pay or not, and received 
a very full and circumstantial reply stating the facts. That letter is in 
this town, I suppose, to-day, but those who have had possession of it have 
been careful never to show it. I have a copy of it here, and if these 
men continue lying about it, I will print it one of these days. [Sensation 
and great applause. Cries of ' Let us have that letter read now, Gen- 
eral Garfield.'] I will not give the name of the party. The name I 
have not to whom it is addressed. 

[The audience here absolutely insisted on having' the letter read, 
some demanding the name, and all positively refusing to allow the 
speaker to proceed without reading the letter in justice to himself and 
for the informatiun of tlie audience.] 

" ' TuEAsuRY Department, AVasuikgton, .June 0, 1873. 

" ' Dea7' Sir : Your letter written early in JNIay was forwarded to me 
at Youngstown, where it could not be answered for want of accurate 
data. When about to return to Washington, I searched for the letter 
but could not find it. jMy recollection of its contents is that you inquired 
as to the repayment into the Treasury by General Garfield of the addi- 
tional compensatiwu due him as a member of tlie Forty-Second Couuress, 
under the provisions of the general appropriation act of March 3, fSTo. 

" ' The additional compensation due General Garfield was drawn by 
Mr. Ordway, sergeant-at-arms of the House of Eepresentatives, and by 
him paid into the Treasury as a miscellaneous revenue receipt. Tl'e' 
money was drawn by ]Mr. O.dway on the order of General Garfield. 
The practice of the sergeant.-at-:;rn}s is to take receipts from mend)eLa 



266 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

in blank in anticipation of the dates at which they are to become due^ 
and to pay their check on him by drawing the money from the Treasury 
on those- receipts. In this way he is, in a measure, the banker of the 
members. General Garfield has signed such receipts month after month 
at the beginning of the mouth, oue of which was filled up by Mr. Ord- 
way and presented to the Treasury. At that time, I believe, Gener;ii 
Garfield was out of the city, but I happen to know that as early as the 
22d day of March this written order was delivered to Mr. Ord way, viz: 
if he had not drawn any money from the Treasury on his account to 
close the account without drawing • it, and if he had drawn it to return 
it. Mr. Oi'dway then informed him that it was necessary for him to 
sign a special order on the Treasury if he wished it drawn out and cov- 
ered in, otherwise Mr. Garfield could draw it at any time within two 
years ; whereupon Mr. Garfield drew an order for $4,548, payable to the 
oi"der of ]Mr. Ordway, to he by him cover'cd into the Treasury. -This 
was presented to the Treasurer and the money turned over from the 
appropriation account to the general account, so that no portion of it 
ever left the Treasury at all. It Avas simply a transfer from the appro- 
priation account to the general funds of the Treasury. 
"'Very respectfully, 

" ' Robert W. Tayler.'" 

"[Applause.] • 

"Question. — What was the date of the adjourment of Congress? 

" General Garfield. — Congress adjourned on the 3d of JNIarch. 

"Question. — What was the date of your letter? 

"General Garfield.— The 22d day of :March was the date of my letter, 

"A voice.— Give us some of the De G(jllyer matter. 

"General Garfield.— We will take each particular thing at the proper 
time and place. A note is hnnded me of which I will speak in this con- 
nection. It is that during the debate Mr. Garfield answered a question 
of Mr. Hibbard, of New Hampshire, who said, 'How about this plunder? 
How much plunder will it take out of the Treasury ? ' And that Mr, 
Garfield's answer, seemed to imply that he did not regard it as plunder 
I believe there has been as much said on that particular reply of mine, 
in connection with this salary business as any thing else that has been 
said. Now I have already answered that in the general remarks I have 
made this evening, namely, when a Democrat from New Hampshire 
rose in liis place and put a question to me, inquiring how much money 



THE NOONTIDE.— De GOLLYER PAVEMENT. 267 

j't '.vould take out of the Treasury if this salary act passed, and put it in 
the form of saying how much 'plunder' it would take, I did not at first 
notice that he used the word 'plunder/ and I answered it would take a 
million and a half dollars out of the Treasury. Then Mr. DaAves rose and 
«aid, ' Did my friend from Ohio notice the word ' plunder ? ' Does he 
acknowAedge this to be 'j:)lunder?' I then said, 'Xo, I don't acknowl- 
edge that this is plunder. If any gentleman tliinks that he is taking 
more than is justly due him in his conscience, let him call it plunder if 
he pleases.' 

"Now, an attempt has been made to make it a})pear that jNIr. Garfield 
approved the salary act because he answered this man that he didn't 
regard it as robbery'. I answer now, I do not regard it as robbery, and 
never have. 

"Now, one word more before I leave this question. I am glad the 
American people rose up in indignation against that salary increase. 
There were some unkind and unjust things said by the people in their 
uprising, but they rose against it and rebuked it with a power and might 
that has been of very great service to the country during the last winter. 
It could not have been repealed but for the rebuke of the people, and I 
could not have led as I did lead in more than ^20,000,000 reduction of 
public expenses, if I had not felt behind me the weight, and help, and 
reinforcement of the indignation of the people in regard to that salary 
increase. I say it was an indecent thing to do, to increase the salaiy 
thus, and it was a great conservative thing for the people to do to de- 
mand its repeal ; and it was repealed. But let us, in discussing it, deal 
with the subject according to the truth. I now pause to inquire if any 
gentleman in the audience has anv questions to ask touching this salary, 
or any thing concerning it? If he has, I shall be very glad to hear 
it. [The speaker here paused, but no questions being asked, he pro- 
ceeded as fallows :] If not, I pass to the subject my friend over yonder 
seemed to be so anxious I should get to before I finished the last; and 
here I approach a que.stion that in one sense is not a question at all, and 
in another sense it may be. I understand that several persons in the dis- 
trict are saying that Mr. Garfield has taken a fee for a so-called law 
o]iinion, but which, in fact, Avas something he ought not to have done — 
which was in reality a kind of fee for his official influence as a member 
of the Committee on Appropriations; or, to speak more plainly, that I 
accepted pay for a service as a kind of bribe, and that too, in 



268 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

THE SO-CALLED DE GOLLYER PAVEMENT. 

"Now, I have tried to state that in the broadest way, with the broad- 
est point forward. I ask the attention of this audience for a few mo- 
ments to the testimony. In the first place, I want the audience to under- 
stand that the city of Washington is governed, and lias always been gov- 
erned so fai^ as its own improvements are concerned, by its own Liws and 
its own people, just as much as Warren has been governed by its own 
corporate la'ws and authority. I remenibei^- perfectly well what has been 
paraded in the j)apers so much of late that Congress has full power to 
legislate over the District of Columbia. Well, Congress has full jui-is- 
diction over what is now called the District of Colilmbia, and Congress 
could, I suppose, make all the police regulations for the city of Washing- 
ton ; but Congress always has allowed the city of Washington to have its 
city council, or a legislature, until the present time. We have abolished 
it, because we had a cumbrous machine. In tlie year 1871 a law was 
passed by Congress creating the board of public works, appointing a gov- 
ernor, and creating a legislature for the District of Columbia. That act 
stated what the board of public works could do and what the (jther 
branches of the District government could do; and among other things, 
it empowered the legislature to levy taxes to make improvements on the 
streets. The legislature met. The bcrard of public works laid before 
them an elaborate plan for improving the streets of Washington, a plan 
amounting to six million dollars in the first place, and the legislature 
adopted the plan and provided that one-third of the entire cost of carrying 
out that plan should be raised by assessing the front foot on the property 
holders, and the other two-tliirds shoxdd be paid by money to be bor- 
rowed by the city government ; in other words, by the issuing of their 
bonds. The city government of Washington borrowed money and raised 
by special taxation enough to carry on a vast system of improvement. 
When they got ready to execute their plan one of the questions that 
came before them was. What kind of pavement shall we put in? and in 
what way shall we go about the business of letting our paving contracts? 
Ill order to settle that question they wrote to all the principal cities and 
f )und out all the methods pursued by them, and finally appointed from 
leading officers of the army — General Humi>hreys, chief engineer ; Gen- 
eral Meigs, quartermaster-general ; the Surgeon-General, and General 
Babcock of the engineer corps ; and those four men sat as an advising 
board, having no power but merely to advise. They took up all kinds 



THE :noonttde.-de gollypjr pavement. 269 

jf pavement ever made; .specimens were sent in; they looked over the 
whole, and as a result recommended this : ' We recommend you, instead 
of letting this work be done by the lowest bidder, with all the scheming 
"straw-bids" that may come in, to fix a tariflT of prices you will pay for 
different kinds of pavement, and we recommend as follows: If you put 
down concrete pavement you had better say you will pay so much per 
square yard for putting it down. We have looked the cities all over 
and find that it is the proper amount to pay ; but for stone so much ; 
for gravel so much; for asphaltum so much; and for wood so much.' 
Now, that board of public works adopted the plan and that schedule of 
prices, and having elected if they put those various kinds of pavements 
down, they would put them down at those rates, they then said to all com- 
ers 'bring in your various kinds of pavements and show us their merits, 
and when we have examined them we will act.' 

"Then the various paving companies and patentees all over the coun- 
try who had what they called good pavements, presented themselves; 
but in almost all cases by their attorneys. They sent men there to I'ep- 
resent the relative merits of the pavements. A pavement company in 
Chicago employed Mr. Parsons, of Cleveland,' as early as the month of 
April, 1872, to go before the board of public works and present the mer- 
its of their pavements. Mr. Parsons had nothing whatever to do with 
the question of prices ; they had already been settled in advance by the 
board. Mr. Parsons was marshal of the Supreme Court at that time, 
and was just about running for Congress. He asked the Chief Justice of 
the United States whether there was any impropriety in his taking that 
case up and arguing it, merely because he was an appointee and under 
his direction, and the Chief Justice responded : ' There was n<nie in the 
world.' He proceeded with the case until the 8th day of June, when, 
for the first time, I heard any thing about it. This was two days before 
the adjournment of Congress. On that day Mr. Parsons came to me 
and said to me he had an important case ; he had worked a good while 
on it but was called away. He must leave. He did iiot want to lose 
his fee in it — was likely to lose it unless the work was c( jnpleted ; he 
must go at any rate. He asked me if I would argue the case for him ; 
if I would examine into the merits of this pavement and make a state- 
ment of it before the -board. I said, ' I will do it if I, on examination, 
find the patent what it purports to be — the best wood pavement patent 
there is, but I can't do it until after Congress adjourns.' Congress ad- 
journed two days later ; the papers of patents were sent to me, modeled 



270 LIFE OF JAMES A. (lAEFIELD. 

specimens, and documents showing where pavement had been used were 
forwarded to me. The investigation of the patents and the chemical 
analysis representing all the elements of the pa'/ement was a laborious 
task and I worked at it as faithfully as any thing I ever worked at. I 
did it in open daylight. I have never been able to understand how any 
body has seen any tlnng in that on which to base an attack on me. I 
say I am to-day intellectually incapable of understanding the track of a 
man's mind who sees in this any ground for attacking me. I made the 
argument; there were two patents contained in that pavement itself; there 
were some forty different wood pavements proposed, and to carefully and 
analytically examine all the relative merits of those was no small work. 
Mr. Parsons was to get a fee providing he was successful, and not any if 
he was not successful, and hence the sum offered was large — a contingent 
fee, as every lawyer knows." 

This is enough to show Mr. Garfield's relation to the De Gollyer 
affair. After some further discussion of it this AYarren speech 
closed as follows : 

"If no further questions are to be asked I will conclude with a few 
general reflections on the whole subject. 

"Nothing is more distasteful to me than to speak of my own work — 
but this disscussion has been made necessary by the jiersistent misrepi-e- 
sentations of those who assail me 

" During my long public service the relation between the people of this 
district and myself has been one of mutual confidence and independence. 
I have tried to follow my own convictions of duty with little regard to 
personal consequences, relying upon the intelligence and justice of the 
people for approval and support. I have sought to promote, not nif rely 
local and class interests, but the general good of the whole countr) , be- 
lieving that thereby I could honor the position I hold and the district I 
represent. On the other hand my constituents have given me tl-e great 
support of their strong and intelligent approval. They have noi always 
approved my judgment, nor the wisdom of my public act-;, liut they 
have sustained me because they knew I was earnestly following my con 
victions of duty, and because they did not want a representative to he 
the mere echo of the public voice, but an intelligent and indeijendriit 
judge of public questions. 

"In conclusion, I appeal to the best men of the district — to men >vlio 



THE NOONTIDE.— CLOSING APPEAL. 271 

are every way worthy and every way capable to judge my conduct — nor 
do 1 lie,<itate to refer all inquiries to those noble men with whom I have 
acted during my public life. They have worked with me as representa- 
tives during all these years, and know tlie character and quality of my 
work. I have sought to make myself worthy of an honorable fame among 
them, and have not sought in vain. They have placed me in many po- 
sitions of large trust and responsibility, and in the present Congress T 
again hold the chairmanship of the committee of the second if not the 
first importance in the House of Representatives. I fearlessly appeal 
to the honorable members of the present Congress, and of all the Con- 
gresses in which I have served, to say if my conduct has not been h.igh 
and worthy — the very reverse of what these home enemies represent it to 
1)6. [Applause.] All this time it has been a source of great strength 
and confidence to knovy that here in this district there has been a strong, 
manly, intelligent constituency willing to hold up my hands and enable 
me more effectually to serve the country and honor them by my service. 
While this has been true, a bitter few have long been doing all in their 
power to depreciate my work and weaken my support. 

"Mr. Wilkins. — You are rising too fast; they are afraid of being 
eclipsed. 

"Mr, Garfield. — In all this I have relied upon the good sense and 
justice of the people to understand both my motives and the motives and 
efforts of my enemies. On some questions of public policy there ha^ e 
been differences between some of my constituents and myself. For in- 
stance, on the currency question, I have followed -what seemed to me to 
be the line of truth and duty, and in that course I believe that the ma- 
jority of the people of this district now concur. Whether right or wrong 
in opinions of this sort, I have believed it to be my duty to act independ- 
ently, and in accordance with the best light I could find. 

Fellow-citizens, I believe I have done my country and you some serv- 
ice, and the only way I can still continue thus to serve you is by enjoy- 
ing, in a reasonable degree, your confidence and support. I am very 
grateful for the expression of con.fidence which you have again given me 
i)y choosing me a seventh time as your candidate. It was an expression 
which I have reason to believe was the result of your deliberate judg^ 
ment, based on a full knowledge of my record ; and it is all the more 
precious to me because it came after one of those storms of public feel- 
ing which sometimes sweeps away the work of a life-time." 



272 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

Aside from what lias been here recounted, Garfield did not speak 
much on these unpleasant topics. Having put himself on record, 
he did not convict himself by protesting overmuch. 

That he felt these things deeply one can not doubt. In a letter 
of January 4, 1875, written to B. A. Hinsdale, he said: 

" With me the year 1874 has been a continuation, and in some respects 
an exagoeration, of 1873. That year brouglit me unusual trials, and 
brought me face to face with personal assaults and the trial that comes 
from calumny and public displeasure. This year has perhaps seen the 
culmination, if not the end, of that kind of ex})erience. I have had 
much discipline of mind and heart in living the lite which these trials 
brought me. Lately I have been studying myself with some anxiety to 
see liow deeply the shadows have settled around my sjiirit. I find I 
have lost much of that exuberance of feeling, that cheerful spirit which 
I think abounded in me before. I am a little graver and less genial than 
I was before the storm struck me. The consciousness of this came to me 
slowly, but I have at last given in to it, and am trying to counteract the 
tendency." 

These efforts were successful ; for prosperity and popularity re- 
turned to him; and even if they had not, General Garfield was 
not the man to acquire l)ii:terness of spirit. 

In fact, if there was one thing wherein Garfield was greater than 
any man in the illustrious group, whose names form a matchless 
diadem for the epoch in which he lived, it was in a SM'eetness of 
temper, a loftiness of spirit, the equal of which can hardly be 
f )und in secular history. His spirit knew no malice ; his heart no 
revenge. A distinguished man who served with him in Congress, 
but who was not a great friend, told the writer that in this re- 
gard Garfield inspired him with awe. His conservative views 
made him many party enemies. Time after time these brilliant 
debaters — Farnsworth and the rest — would attack Garfield. No 
sarcasm was too cutting, no irony too cold. At times the speaker 
seemed to leave the quiver of ridicule without an arrow. Wiien 
Garfield rose to reply, it was in a tone of calm discussion. He 
would ])roceed to the subject in hand in the friendliest and nu^st 
earnest manner. No attack could provoke him to reply to per- 



THE NOONTIDE.— IN THE MINORITY. 273 

sonalities or invective. N-ever did he lose self-poise for a moment. 
It wa.s said that a stranger entering the House after Garfield had 
begun his speech in answer to some mo.st galling attack would 
never suspect that the sj)eech was a reply to hostile and malignant 
assault. 

The elections of 1874 having resulted favorably to the Demo- 
cratic party, the Republicans found themselves with only a minority 
in the House in the Forty-Fourth Congress. Blaine lost his position 
as Speaker, and INIichael C. Kerr, of Indiana, presided. Committees 
were all reorganized with Democratic chairmen and majorities. 

Garfield, after having been four years Chairman of the Com- 
mittee on Appropriations, now found himself near the foot of the 
Committee of AVays and Means, with a weighty group of Demo- 
crats above him on the list. During his last four terms, Garfield 
was a member of the House Committee on Rules. His knowledge 
of Parliamentary Law amounted to a mastery of the subject. 

In consequence of this change, General Garfield, suddenly re- 
lieved of his usual large responsibility in the work of legislation, 
was turned into a comparatively new field of public life. Relieved 
of the real work of legislation, for the first time he had a good 
opportunity to observe how others would do that work. 

A very brief sea.son of such observation on the part of Garfield 
and his fellow-partisans was enough to make them dissatisfied with 
Democratic statesmanship. The new majority began to destroy 
M^hat Republicans had spent so many years in building up. Then 
came organized opposition. 

The first great collision occurred in January, 1870. This first 
Democratic House since the war was, very naturally, led by South- 
ern members. Manv late rebel generals had been sent to it. It 
was popularly named the Confederate Congress — the rule of rebel 
brigadiers. Of course, it was not long till they l)egan to propo.se 
measures peculiarly favorable to themselves. 

AVhen, at the close of the civil war, the Southern States were 

restored to their right places in the Union, many of their citizens, 

guilty of treason, had lost their political privileges. By acts of 

legislation and presidential proclamations, most of these di.sabilities 
18 



274 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

had been removed. Early in the Forty-Fourth Congress the Am- 
nesty Bill was proposed, extending pardon to all ex-Confederates 
unconditionally. 

It had been the policy of the Government to restore the South 
completely in this respect, as fast as it was expedient to do so; but 
this was, as yet, too sweeping a measure. The Republican leaders 
were opposed to it; and Mr. Blaine proposed an amendment, except- 
ing Jefferson Davis absolutely and by name, and excepting seven 
hundred and fifty others until they should renounce their treason by 
taking the oath of allegiance to the United States. The friends 
of the bill would not except even Davis, and on this point there 
arose one of the most exciting debates ever held in Congress. 

The attack was first made by Mr. Blaine, in the course of a 
scries of sharp thrusts between himself and Samuel J. Randall, of 
Pennsylvania, who had charge of the bill. Finally the " plumed 
knight " rushed to the front and dealt his heavy blows. It was 
a terrible arraignment of the Confedei-ate President, making him 
responsible for the savage cruelties practiced on Union prisoners. 
All the horrors of Andersonville and Libby prisons were described. 
He read the celebrated order " Number Thirteen," directing rebel 
guns to be turned on the suffering thousands at Andersonville, on 
the approach of Sherman. Davis, he said, was a party to these 
proceedings, and the American people would not, should not 
sanction any act which made it possible for this man ever again to 
hold any honorable public position within the gift of his Southern 
friends. 

After Blaine's speech, the debate was continued by Mr. Cox. 
Then came Benjamin Hill, of Georgia, and James A. Garfield, of 
Ohio. Hill took up the charges of Blaine, parried them skillfully 
without answering them, made counter-charges against the Gov- 
ernment in its treatment of rebel prisoners, and, in fine, succeeded 
in his attempt to overcome the impression made by the Blaine attack. 
In this emergency, while the whole Democracy was exulting, and 
Hill was the hero of the hour, all eyes turned towards Garfield, 
for he promised a reply, and was known to be better able for that 
task than any other man. 



THE NOONTIDE.— THE AMNESTY BILL. 2/5 

On the next day, January 12, Mr. Garfield was given the floor, 
and began. After stating his regret that such an unpleasant dis- 
cussion had arisen, he made a brief review of the situation, and 
proceeded thus : 

"Let me say in the outset that, so far as I am personally conceruecl, I 
have never voted against any projoosition to grant amnesty to any hu- 
man l)eing who has asked for it at the bar of the House. Furthermore, 
I appeal to gentlemen on the other side who have been with me in this 
hall many years, whether at any time they have found me truculent in 
spirit, unkind in tone or feeling toward those Avho fought against us in 
the late war. Twelve years ago this very month, standing in this place, 
I said this: 'I believe a truce could be struck to-day between the rank 
and file of the hostile armies now in the field. I believe they could meet 
and shake hands together, joyful over returning peace, each respecting 
the courage and manhood of the other, and each better able to live in 
amity than before the war.* 

*'I am glad to repeat word for word what I said that day. For the 
purposes of this speech I will not even claim the whole ground which 
the Government assumed toward the late rebellion. For the sake of the 
present argument, I will view the position of those who took uj) arms 
against the Government in the light least offensive to them. 

" Leaving out of sight for the moment the question of slavery, which 
evoked so much passion, and which was the producing cause of the late 
war, there were still two opposing political theories which met in con- 
flict. Most of the Southern statesmen believed that their first obedi- 
ence was due to their- State. We believed that the allegiance of an 
American citizen was due to the National government, not by the Avay 
of a State capital, but in a direct line from his own heart to the govern- 
ment of the Union. Xow% that question was submitted to the dreadful 
arbitrament of war, to the court of last resort — a court from which there 
is no appeal, and to which all other powers must bow. To that dread 
court the great question was carried, and there the right of a State to 
secede was put to rest forever. For the sake of peace and iniion, I am 
willing to treat our late antagonists as I would treat litigants in other 
courts, who, when they have made their appeal and final judgment is 
rendered, pay the reasonable costs and bow to its mandates. Our ques- 
tion to-day is not that, but is closely connected with it. When we have 
made our argument and the court has rendered its judgment, it may he 



270 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

tliat in tlu' course of its proceedings the court has used its discretion to 
disliar some of its counselors for malpractice, for unprofessional conduct. 
In such a case a motion may be made to restoi-e the disbarred members. 
Applying this illustration to the present case, there are seven hundred 
and fifty people who are yet disbarred before the highest authority of the 
Re])ublic — the Constitution itself. The proposition is to offer again the 
privileges of official station to these j^eople ; and we are all agreed as to 
every human being of them save one. 

"I do not object to Jefferson Davis because he was a conspicuous 
leader. Whatever we may believe theologically, I do not believe in the 
doctrine of vicarious atonement in politics. Jefferson Davis was no more 
guilty for taking up arms than any other man who went into the rebellion 
witlv equal intelligence. But this is the question : In the high court of 
war did he practice according to its well-known laws — the laws of nations? 
Did he, in a})pealing to war, obey the laws of war; or did he so violate 
those laws, that justice to those who suffered at his hands demands that 
he be not permi'tted to come back to his old privileges in the Union? 
That is the whole question ; and it is as plain and fair a question for de- 
liberation as was ever debated in this House." 

From tins point Mr. Garfield proceeded by a long argument, 
well supported by authorities, to show forth the real history 
of the atrocities mentioned, and to demonstrate the responsi- 
bility of Jefferson Davis for them. He ended this portion of 
the discussion in these words : 

"It seems to me incontrovertible that the records I have adduced lay 
at his door the charge of being himself the author, the conscious author, 
through his own appointed instrument, of the terrible work at Anderson- 
ville, for which the American people still hold him unfit to be admitted 
among the legislators of this Nation. 

;!; :4^ ^ * ;1< >!; * 

"And now, Mr. Speaker, I close as I began. Toward those men who 
gallantly fi)ught us on the field I cherish tlie kindest feeling. I feel a 
sincere reverence for the soldierly qualities they displayed on many a well- 
fought battle-field. I hope the day will come when their swords and ours 
will be crossed over many a doorway of our children, who will remember 
the gl(jry of their ancestors with pride. The high qualities displayed in 
that conflict now belong to the whole Nation. Let them be consecrated 



THE NOONTIDE.— THE AMNESTY BILL. 277 

to the Union, and its future peace and glory. I shall hail that conse- 
cration as a pledge and symbol of our perpetuity. 

" But there was a class of men referred to in the speech of the gentle- 
man yesterday for whom I have never yet gained the Christian grace 
uecessai-y to say the same thing. The gentleman said that, amid tlie 
thunder of battle, through its dim smoke, and above its roar, they heard 
a voice from this side saying, 'Brothers, come!' I do not know whether 
he meant the same thing, but I heard that voice behind us. I heard that 
voice, and I recollect that I sent one of those who uttered it through 
our lines — a voice owned by Vallandigham. General Scott said, in tlie 
early days of the war, ' When this war is over, it will require all the 
physical and moral power of the Government to restrain the rage and 
fury of the non-combatants.' It was that non-combatant voice behind us 
that cried ' Halloo ! ' to the other side ; that always giwe cheer and" en- 
couragement to the enemy in our hour of darkness. I have never for- 
gotten, and have not yet forgiven, those Democrats of the North whose 
hearts were not warmed by the grand inspirations of the Union, but who 
stood back, finding feult, always crying disaster, rejoicing at our defeat, 
never glorying in our victory. If these are the voices the gentleman 
heard, I am sorry he is now united with those who uttered them. 

" But to those most noble men, Democrats and Repid^licans, who to- 
gether fought for the Union, I commend all the lessons of charity that 
the wisest and most beneficent men have taught. 

"I join you all in every aspiration that you may express to stay in 
this Union, to heal its wounds, to increase its glory, and to forget the 
evils and bitterness of the past ; but do not, for the sake of the three 
hundred thousand heroic men who, maimed and bruised, drag out their 
weary lives, many of them carrying in their hearts horrible memories of 
what they suffered in the prison-pen — do not ask us to vote to put back 
into power that man who was the cause of their suffering — that man still 
unaneled, unshriven, unforgiven, undefended." 

As the autumn of 1876 approached, it became evident that the 
Democratic party, already dominant in the House, would make a 
desperate struggle at the November elections to get complete con- 
trol of the Government. 

Before the long session of that hot summer ended, Mr. Lamar, 
of Mississippi, took occasion to deliver in the House a powerful 



278 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

campaign speech, attempting to prove that the Republican party 
did not deserve further support from the people, and that the De- 
mocracy was eminently worthy to rule in their stead. The next 
day, August 4, Mr. Garfield replied. A part of this reply is here 
given : 

" J//\ Chairvian: I regret that the speech of .the gentlemun from 
Mississippi [Mr. Lamar] has not yet appeared in the li^eord, so that I 
might have had its full and authentic text before offering my own re- 
marks in reply. But his propositions were so clearly and so very ably 
stated, the doctrines that run through it were so logically connected, it 
will be my own fault if I foil to understand and appreciate the general 
scoj^e and purpose of his speech. 

" In the outset, I desire for myself and f)r a majority at least, of those 
for whom I speak, to express my gratitude to the gentleman for all that 
portion of his speech which had for its object the removal of the preju- 
dices and unkindly feelings that have arisen among citizens of the Re- 
public in consequence of the late war. Whatever faults the speech may 
have, its author expresses an earnest desire to make progress in the di- 
rection of a better understanding between the North and the South; and 
in that it meets my most hearty concurrence and approval. 

"I will attempt to state briefly what I understand to be the logic of 
the gentleman's speech. 

"Now I have stated — of course very briefly, but I hope Avith entire 
fairness — the scope of the very able speech to which we listened. In a 
word, it is this: The Republican party is oppressing the South; negro 
suffrage is a grievous evil; there are serious corruptions in public affairs 
in the national legislation and administration; the civil .service of the 
country especially needs great and radical reform; and, therefore, the 
Democratic party ought to be placed in control of the Governiucnt at 
this time. 

"It has not been my ha1)it, and it is not my desire, to discuss mere 
party politics in this great legislative forum. And I shall do so now 
only in so far as a fair review of the gentleman's speech requires. My 
remarks .shall be responsive to his; and 1 shall discuss party history and 
party policy only as the logic of his speecli leads into that domain. 

"From most of the premises of the gentleman, as matters of fact and 
history, I dissent; sonie of them are undoubtedly correct. But, for the 



THE NOONTIDE.— REPLY TO LAMAK. 270 

sake of argumeut only, admitting that all his premises are correct, I deny 
that his conclusion is Avarranted by his premises; and, before I close, I 
shall attempt to show that the good he seeks can not be secured by the 
ascendency of the Democratic party at this time. 

"Before entering upon that field, however, I must notice this remark- 
al)le omission in the logic of his speech. Although he did state that the 
country might consider itself free from some of the dangers which are 
apprehended as the result of Democratic ascendency, he did not, as I re- 
member, by any word attempt to prove the fitness of the Democracy as 
a political orgisnization to accomplish the reforms which he so much de- 
sires ; and -without that affirmative proof of fitness his argumeut is neces- 
sarily an absolute failure. 

"It is precisely that fear whi(;h has not only made the ascendency of 
the Democratic paity so long impossible, but has made it incompetent to 
render that service so necessary to good government — the service of main- 
taining the position of a wise and honorable opposition to the dominant 
party. Often the blunders and faults of the Eepublican party have been 
condoned by the people because of the violent, reactionary, and disloyal 
spirit of the Democracy. 

" He tells us that it is one of the well-known lessons of political his- 
tory and philosophy, that the opposition party comes in to preserve and 
crystallize the measures which their antagonists inaugurated ; and that a 
conservative opposition party is better fitted to accomplish such a work 
than an aggressive radical party, who roughly pioneered the way and 
brought in the changes. And to apply this maxim to our own situation, 
he tells us that the differences between the Eepublican and the Democratic 
parties upon the issues which led to the war, and those which grew out of 
it, were rather differences of time than of substance; that the Democracy 
followed more slowly in the Republican path, but have at last arrived, l)y 
prudent and constitutional methods, at the same results ; and hence they 
will be sure to guard securely and cherish faithfully what the Republicans 
gained by reckless and turbulent methods. There is some truth in these 
'glittering generalities,' but, as applied to our present situation, they an- 
entitled only to the consideration which we give to the bright but fantas- 
tic pictures of a Utopian dream. 

" I share all that gentleman's aspirations for peace, for good government 
at the South ; and I believe I can safely assure him that the great ma- 
jority of the nation shai-es the same aspiratirnis. But he Avill allow me 



280 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

to siiy that he has not fully stated the elements of the great problem to 
be solved by the statesmanship of to-day. The actual field is much broader 
than the view he has taken. And before we can agree that the remedy he 
piiJi)os..'S is an adequate one, we must take in the whole field, comprehend 
all the conditions of the problem, and then see if his remedy is sufficient. 
The change he proposes is not like the ordinary change of a ministry in 
England when the government is defeated on a tax-bill or some routine 
measure of legislation. He proposes to turn over the custody and man- 
ageuient of the Government to a party which has persistently, and with 
the greatest bitterness, resisted all the great changes of the last fifteen 
years ; changes which were the necessary results of a vast revolution — a 
revolution in national policy, in social and political ideas — a revolutiua 
whose causes were not the work of a day nor a year, but of generations 
and centuries. The scope and character of that mighty i-evolution mus^t 
form the basis of our judgment when we inquire whether such a change 
as he proposes is safe and wise. 

"In discussing his proposition we must not forget that, as the result of 
this revolution, the South, after the great devastations of war, the great 
loss of life and treasure, the overthrow of its social and industrial system, 
was called upon to confront the new and difficult ])roblem of two races — 
one just relieved from centuries of slavery, and the other a cultivated, 
brave, proud, imperious race — to be brought together on terms of equality 
before the law. New, difficult, delicate, and dangerous questions bristle 
out from every point of that problem. 

"But that is not all of the situation. On the otlier liaiid, we see the 
North, after leaving its 350,000 dead upon the field of battle and liriiig- 
ing home its 500,000 maimed and wounded to be cared for, crippled in its 
industries, staggering under the tremendous burden of public and private 
debt, and both North and South weighted with unparalleled burdens and 
losses — the whole nation suffering from that loosening of the bonds of 
social order which always follows a great war, and from the resulting cor- 
ruption both in the public and the private life of the people. These, 
}ilr. Cliairman, constitute the vast field which we must survey in order 
to find the path which will soonest lead our beloved country to the high- 
way of j)eace, of liberty and prosperity. Peace from the shock of battle; 
the higher peace of our streets, of our homes, of our equad rights, we 
luust make secure by making the conquering ideas of the war every-where 
dominant and permanent. 



THE NOONTIDE.— REPLY TO LAMAR. 281 

" "With all my heart I join with the gentleman in rejoicing that — 
'" The war-drums throb no longer, and the battle-flags are furled ' — 

and I look forward with joy and hope to the day when our brave peo- 
ple, one in heart, one in their asjiirations for freedom and peace, shall 
see that the darkness through which we have traveled was a part of that 
stern but beneficent discipline by which the Great Disposer of events 
has been leading us on to a higher and nobler national life. 

"But such a result can be reached only by comprehending the whole 
meaning of the revolution through which we have passed and are still 
passing. I say still passing ; for I remember that after the battle of 
arms comes the battle of history. The cause that triumphs in the field 
does not always triumph in history. And those who carried the war 
for union and equal and universal freedoiii to a victorious issue can never 
safely relax their vigilance until the ideas for which they fought have 
become embodied in the enduring forms of individual and national life. 

" Has this been done? Not yet. 

" I ask the gentleman in all plainness of speech, and yet in all kind- 
ness, is he correct in his statement that the conquered party accept the 
results of the war? Even if they do, I remind the gentleman that accept 
is not a very strong word. I go furtlier. I ask him if the Democratic 
party have adopted the results of the war.? Is it not asking too much 
of human nature to expect such unparalleled changes to be not only ac- 
cepted, but, in so short a time, adopted by men of strong and independ- 
ent opinions? 

" The antagonisms which gave rise to the war and gi-ew out of it were 
not born in a day, nor can they vanish iii a night, 

"Mr. Chairman, great ideas travel slowly, and for a time noiselessly, 
as the gods, whose feet were shod with wool. Our war of independence 
was a war of ideas, of ideas evolved out of two hunded years of slow and 
silent growth. When, one hundred years ago, our fathers announced as 
self-evident truths the declaration that all men are created equal, aud the 
only just power of governments is derived from the consent of the gov- 
erned, they uttered a doctrine that no nation had ever adopted, that not 
one kingdom on the earth then believed. Yet to our fathers it was so 
plain that they would not debate it. They announced it as a truth ' self- 
evident.' 

"Whence came the immortal truths of the Declai'ation? To me this 
was for years the riddle of our history. I have searched long and 



282 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

patiently through the books of the doctrinaires to find the germs from 
which the Declaration of Independence sprang. I found hints in Locke, 
in Hobbes, in Kousseau, and Fenelon; but they were only the hints of 
dreamer:^ and philosophers. The great doctrines of the Declaration ger- 
minated in the hearts of our fathers, and were developed under the new 
influences of this wilderness world, by the same subtle mystery which 
brings forth the rose from the germ of the rose-tree. Unconsciously to 
themselves, the great truths were growing under the new conditions until, 
like the century-i)lant, they blossomed into the matchless .beauty of the 
Declaration of Independence, whose fruitage, increased and increasing, 
we enjoy to-day. 

"It will not do, Mr. Chairman, to speak ol the gigantic revolution 
through which we have lately passed as a thing to be adjusted and settled 
by a change of administration. It was cyclical, epochal, century-wide, 
and to be studied in its broad and grand perspective — a revolution of even 
wider scope, so far as time is concerned, than the Revolution of 1776. 
We have been dealing with elements and forces which have been at work 
on this continent more than two hundred and fifty years. I trust I shall 
be excused "if I take a few moments to trace some of the leading phases 
of the great struggle. And, in doing so, I beg gentlemen to see that 
the subject itself lifts us into a region where the individual sinks out of 
sight and is absorbed in the mighty current of great events. It is not the 
occasion to award praise or pronounce condemnation. In such a revolu- 
tion men are like insects that fret and toss in the storm, but are swept on- 
ward by the resistless movements of elements beyond their control. I 
speak of this revolution not to praise the men who aided it, or to censure 
the men w^ho resisted it, but as a force to be studied, as a mandate to be 
obeyed. 

In the year 1620 there were planted upon this continent two ideas irre- 
concilably hostile to each other. Ideas are the great warriors of the 
world; and a war that has no ideas behind it is simply brutality. Tlie 
two ideas w6re landed, one at Plymouth Rock from the Mayfloiuer, and 
the other from a Dutch brig at Jamestown, Virginia. One was the old 
doctrine of Luther, that private judgment in politics as well as religion, 
is the right and duty of every man ; and the other that capital should 
own labor, that the negro had no rights of manhood, and the white man 
might justly buy, own, and sell him and his offspring forever. Thus 
freedom and equality on the one hand, and on the other the slavery of 



THE KOOXTIDE.-EEPLY TO LAMAR. 283 

one race and the domination of another, were the two germs planted on 
this continent. In our vast expanse of wilderness, for a long time, there 
was room for both ; and their advocates began the race across the conti- 
nent, each developing the social and political institutions of their choice. 
Both had vast interests in common ; and for a long time neither was con- 
scious of the fatal antagonisms that were developing. 

"For nearly two centuries there was no serious collision; but when 
the continent began to fill up, and the people began to jostle against 
e^ch other; when the Roundhead and the Cavalier came near enough to 
measure opinions, the irreconcilable character of the two doctrines 
began to appear. Many conscientious men studied the subject, and 
came to the belief that slavery was a crime, a sin, or as Wesley said, 
' the sum of all villainies.' This belief dwelt in small minorities for a 
long time. It lived in the churches and vestries, but later found its way 
into the civil and political organizations of the country, and finally 
found its way into this chamber. A few brave, clear-sighted, far-seeing 
men announced it here, a little more than a generation ago. A prede- 
cessor of mine, Joshua R. Giddings, following the lead of John Quincy 
Adams, of Massachusetts, almost alone held up the banner on this floor, 
and from year to year comrades came to his side. Through evil and 
through good report he pressed the question upon the conscience of the 
nation. 

"And so the contest continued ; the supporters of slavery believing 
honestly and sincerely that slavery was a divine institution ; that it 
found its high sanctions in the living oracles of God and in a wise poYit- 
ical philosophy ; that it was justified by the necessities of their situation ; 
and that slave-holders were missionaries to the dark sons of Africa, to 
elevate and bless them. We are so far past the passions of that early 
time that we can now study the progress of the struggle as a great and 
inevitable development, without sharing in the crimination and recrim- 
ination that attended it. If both sides could have seen that it was a 
contest beyond their control; if both parties could have realized the truth 
tliat ' unsettled questions have no pity for the repose of nations,' much 
less for the fate of political parties, the bitterness, the sorrow, the tears, 
and the blood might have been avoided. But we walked in the darkness, 
our paths obscured by the smoke of the conflict, each following his own 
convictions through ever-increasing fierceness, until the debate culminated 
in ' the last argument to which kings resort.' 



284 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

" This conflict of opinion nvus not nierely one of sentimental feeling ; 
it involved our whole political system ; it gave rise to two radically dif- 
ferent theories of the nature of our Government: the North believing 
and hdhling tluit we were a Nation, the Souih insisting that we were only a 
coufedsiutioii of sovereign States, and insisting that each State had the 
right, at its own discretion, to break the Union, and constantly threat- 
ening secession where the full rights of slavery were not acknowledged. 

"Thus the defense and aggrandizement of slavery, and the hatred of 
Abolitionism, became not only the central idea of the Democratic party, 
but its master-passion — a passion intensified and inflamed by twenty-five 
years of fierce political contest, which had not only driven from its ranks 
all those who preferred freedom to slavery, but had absorbed all the ex- 
treme pro-slavery elements of the fallen Whig party. Over against this 
was arrayed the Republician party, asserting the broad doctrines of nation- 
ality and loyalty, insisting that no State had a right to secede, that 
secession was treason, and demanding that the institution of slavery 
should be restricted to the limits of the States where it already existed. 
But here and there, many bolder and more radical thinkers declared, 
with Wendell Phillips, that there never could be uniou and peace, free- 
dom and prosperity, until we were willing to see John Hancock under a 
black skin. 

■.'fi ■,it -^ -^ -^ ;|c ;K 

"Mr. Chairman, after the facts I have cited, am I m^t warranted in 
raising a grave duuht whether the transformation occurred at all except 
in a few patriotic and philosophic minds? The light gleams first on the 
mountain peaks; but shadows and darkness linger in the valley. It is 
in the valley masses of those lately in rebellion that the light of this 
beautiful philosophy, which I honor, has not penetrated. It is safer to 
withhold from them the custody and supi-eme control of the precious 
treasures of the Republic until the midday sun of liberty, justice, and 
eqtial laws shall shine upon them with unclouded ray. 

"In view of all the facts, considering the centuries of influence that 
brought on the great struggle, is it not reasonable to suppose that it will 
re(iuire yet more time to effect the great transformation? Did not the dis- 
tinguished gentleman from Massachusetts pir. George F. Hoar] sum up 
the case fairly and truthfully when he said of the South, in his Louis- 
iana report of 1874: 'They submitted to the national authority, not 
because they would, but because they mu>t. Tlu'V abandoned the doc- 



THE XOONTIDE.— REPLY TO LAMAE. 285 

trine of State sovereignty, which they had claimed made their duty to 
the States paramount to that due to the nation in case of conflict, not 
because they would, but because they must. They submitted to the 
constitutional amendments which rendered their former slaves tlicir 
equals in all political riglits, not because they would, but because they 
must. The j)assiuns which led to the war, the passions which the Avar 
excited, were left untamed and unchecked, except so far as their exhibi- 
tion was restrained by the arm of power.' 

"Mr. Chairman, it is now time to inquire as to the fitness of this 
Democratic party to take control of our great nation and its vast and im- 
portant interests for the next four years. I put the question to the gentle- 
man from Mississippi [Mr. Lamar], what has the Democratic party done 
to merit that great trust ? He tried to show in what respects it would 
not be dangerous. I ask him to show in what it would be safe. I affirm, 
and I believe I do not misrepresent the great Democratic party, that in 
the last sixteen years they have not advanced one great national idea that 
is not to-day exploded and as dead as Julius Csesar. And if any Demo- 
crat here will rise and name a great national doctrine his party has ad- 
vanced, within that time, that is now alive and believed in, I will yield 
to hear him. [A pause.] In default of an answer, I will attempt to 
prove my negative. 

"What were tlie great central doctrines of the Democratic party in 
the presidential struggle of 1860? The followers of Breckinridge said 
slavery had a right to go wherever the Constitution goes. Do you be- 
lieve that to-day? Is there a man on this continent that holds that doc- 
trine to-day? Not one. That doctrine is dead and buried. The other 
wing of the Democracy held that slavery might be established in tlie ter- 
ritories if the people wanted it. Does any body hold that doctrine to-day? 
Dead, absolutely dead! 

"Come doAvn to 1864. Your party, under the lead of Tilden and 
Vallandigham, declared the experiment of war to save the Union was a 
failure. Do you believe that doctrine to-day? That doctrine was shot 
to death by the guns of Farragut at Mobile, and driven, in a tempest of 
fire, from the valley of the Shenandoah by Sheridan less than a month 
after its birth at (Jhicago. 

"Come down to 1868. You declared the Constitutional Amendments 
revolutionary and void. Does any man on this floor say so to-day? If 
so, let him rise and declare it. 



286 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

"Do you believe in the doctrine of the Broadhead letter of 1868. that 
the so-called Constitutional Amendments should be disregarded ? No ; 
the gentleman from Mississippi accepts the results of the Avar! The 
Democratic doctrine of 1868 is dead! 

" I walk across that Democratic camping-ground as in a graveyard. 
Under my feet resound the hollow echoes of the dead. There lies slavery, 
a black marble column at the head of its grave, on which I read: Died in 
the flames of the Civil War; loved in its life; lamented in its death; fol- 
lowed to its bier by its only mourner, the Democratic party, but dead ! 
And here is a double grave : Sacred to the memory of Squatter Sov- 
ereignty. Died in the campaign of 1860. On the reverse side : Sacred 
to the memory of the Dred Scott-Breckinridge doctrine. Both died at 
the hands of Abraham Lincoln! And here a monument of brimstone: 
Sacred to the memory of the Rebellion; the war against it is a failure; 
Tilden et Vallamlighamfecerunt, A. D. 1864. Dead on the field of battle; 
shot to death by the million guns of the Republic. The doctrine of Se- 
cession ; of State Sovereignty. Dead. Expired in the flames of civil 
war, amidst the blazing rafters of the Confederacy, except that the mod- 
ern JEneas, fleeing out of the flames of that ruin, bears on his back 
another Anchises of State Sovereignty, and brings it here in the person 
of the honorable gentleman from the Appomattox district of Virginia 
[Mr. Tucker]. [Laughter.] All else is dead. 

"Now, gentlemen, are you sad, are you sorry for these deaths? Are 
you not glad that Secession is dead? that slavery is dead? that Squatter 
Sovereignty is dead ? that the doctrine of the failure of the war is dead ? 
Then you are glad that you were out-voted in 1860, in 1864, in 1868, 
and in 1872. If you have tears to shed over these losses, shed them in 
the graveyard, but not in this House of living men. I know that many 
a Southern man rejoices that these issues are dead. The gentleman from 
Mississijipi has clothed his joy with eloquence. 

"Now, gentlemen, if you yourselves are glad that you have suffered 
defeat during the last sixteen years, will you not be equally glad when 
you suffer defeat next November? [Laughter.] But pardon that re- 
mark ; I regret it ; I would use no bravado. 

"Now, gentlemen, come with me for a moment into the camp of the 
Republican party and review its career. Our central doctrine in 1860 
was that slavery should never extend itself over another foot of American 
soil. Is that doctrine dead? It is folded away like f* victorious banner; 



THE NOONTIDE.— REPLY TO LAMAR. 287 

'its truth is alive for evermore on this continent. In 1864 we declared 
that we would put down the Rebellion and Secession. And that doctrine 
lives, and will live when the second Centennial has arrived! Freedom, 
national, universal, and perpetual — our great Constitutional Amend- 
ments, are they alive or dead? Alive, thank the God that shields both 
liberty and Union, And our national credit, saved from the assaults of 
Pendleton; saved from the assaults of those who struck it later, rising 
higher and higher at home and abroad; and only now in doubt lest its 
chief, its only enemy, the Democracy, should triumph in November. 

"Mr. Chairman, ought the Repubhcan party to surrender its trun- 
cheon of command to the Democracy ? The gentleman from Mississippi 
says, if this were England, the ministry would go out in twenty-four 
hours with such a state of things as we have here. Ah, yes ! that is an 
ordinary case of change of administration. But if this were England, 
what would she have done at the end of the war? England made one 
such mistake as the gentleman asks this countiy to make, when she 
threw away the achievements of the grandest man that ever trod her 
highway of power. Oliver Cromwell had overturned the throne of 
despotic power, and had lifted his country to a place of masterful great- 
ness among the nations of the earth; and Avhen, after his death, his 
great scepter was transferred to a weak though not unlineal hand, his 
country, in a moment of reactionary blindness, brought back the Stuarts. 
England did not recover from that folly until, in 1689, the Prince of 
Orange drove from her island the last of that weak and wicked line. 
Did she afterward repeat the blunder ? 

"For more than fifty years pretenders were seeking the throne; and 
the wars on her coast, in Scotland and in Ireland, threatened the over- 
throw of the new dynasty and the disruption of the empire. But the 
solid phlegm, the magnificent pluck, the roundabout common-sense of 
Englishmen steadied the throne till the cause of the Stuarts was dead. 
They did not change as soon as the battle was over and let the Stuarts 
come back to power. 

"And how was it in our own country, when our fathers had triumphed 
in the war of the Revolution? When the victory was won, did they 
open their arms to the Loyalists, as they called themselves, or Tories, as 
our fathers called them? Did they invite them back? Not one. They 
confiscated their lands. The States passed decrees that no Tory should 
live on our soil. And when they were too poor to take themselves away, 



288 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

our fathers, burdened as the young nation was with debt, raised the 
money to transport the Tories beyond seas or across the Canada border. 
They went to Enghmd, to France, to Nova Scotia, to New Brunswick, 
and especially to Halifax; and that town was such a resort for tlieni, 
that it became the swear-word of our boyhood. 'Go to Halifax!' was a 
substitute for a more impious, but not more opprobrious expression. 
The presence of Tories made it opprobrious. 

"Now, I do not refer to this as an example which we ought to fallow. 
Oh, no. We live in a milder era, in an age softened by the more genial 
influence of Christian civilization. AVitness the sixty-one men who 
fought against us in the late war, and who are now sitting in this and 
the other chamber of Congress. Every one of them is here because a 
magnanimous nation freely voted that they might come; and they are 
welcome. Only please do not say that you are just now especially fitted 
to rule the Republic, and to be the apostles of liberty and of blc'^sings to 
the colored race. 

"Gentlemen, the North has been asked these many years to regard 
the sensibilities of the South. We have been told that you were brave 
and sensitive men, and that we ought not to throw firebrands among 
you. Most of our people have treated you with justice and magnanimity. 
In some things we have given you just cause for complaint; but I want 
to remind you that the North also has sensibilities to be regarded. The 
ideas which they cherished, and for which they fought, triumphed in the 
highest court, the court of last resort, the field of battle. Our people 
intend to abide by that verdict and to enforce the mandate. They re- 
joice at every evidence of acquiescence. They look forward to the day 
when the distinctions of North and South shall have melted away in the 
grander sentiment of nationality. But they do not think it is yet safe to 
place the control of this great Avork in your luinds. In the hands of 
some of you they would be safe, perfectly safe; but into the hands of the 
united South, joined with the most reactionary elements of the Northern 
Democracy, our j^eople will not yet surrender the government. 

"I am aware that there is a general disposition 'to let by-gones be 
by-gones,' and to judge of parties and of men, not by what they have 
been, but by what they are and what they propose. 

"That view is partly just and partly erroneous. It is just and wise to 
bury resentments and animosities. It is erroneous in this, that parties 
have an organic life and spirit of their own — an individuality and cliar- 



THE NOONTIDE.— AN ELOQUENT TRIBUTE. 289 

acter which outlive the men who compose them ; and the spirit and tra- 
ditions of a party should be considered in determining their fitness for 
managing the afiairs of a nation. For this purpose I have reviewed the 
history of the Democratic party." 

Long ago an arrangement was perfected by which each 
State of the Union should be allowed to place in the halls 
of Congress two statues of distinguished citizens. On Decem- 
ber 19, 1876, the State of Massachusetts announced its read- 
iness to comply with this arrangement, by presenting two 
statues, one of John Winthrop and one of Samuel Adams. 

Speaking on the resolution of that day, accepting this gift,. 
Mr. Garfield made one of the most felicitous of the many 
speeches of this kind that he has left on record. One para- 
graph from this address can not be omitted here: 

"As, from time to time, our venerable and beautiful Hall has been' 
peopled with statues of the elect of the States, it has seemed to me that 
a Third House was being organized within the walls of the Capitol — a 
house whose members have received their high credentials at the hands of 
history, and whose term of ofice will outlast the ages. Year by year we 
see the circle of its immortal membei'ship enlarging ; year by year we 
see the elect of their country, in eloquent silence, taking their places in 
this American Pantheon, bringing within its sacred circle the wealth of 
those immortal memories which made their lives illustrious; and year 
by year that august assembly is teaching a deeper and grander lesson to 
all who serve their brief hour in these more ephemeral Houses of Con- 
gress. • And now two places of great honor have just been most nobly 
filled." 

Of a truth, General Garfield understood and appreciated the 
greatness of the Kepublic, and the grandeur of the character 
which belonged to its founders! 

The election for President, in 1876, and the difiiculty which^ 
arose in deciding its results, will not be forgotten by this gen- 
eration, or left out of the studies of American statesmen in 
the future. We still vividly recollect how narrow the majority, 
and how uncertain ; how all depended on three doubtful 
19 



290 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

Southern States; how the "visiting statesmen" went to Is'ew 
Orleans to watch the count before the Returning Board; how 
the nation waited breathless while these momentous calcula- 
tions were being made. And linally, we long shall remember 
that famous Electoral Commission which by an eight to seven 
vote made R. B. Hayes President of the United States. 

Arriving at Washington. early in ISTovember, General Gar- 
(ield was requested by President Grant to go to ISTew Orleans 
witli the little company of Democratic and Republican lead- 
iirs who were there. General Garfield arrived in New Orleans 
on November fourteenth. In common with other members of 
the_ Republican Committee, he refused to unite in any move- 
ment to in any way influence the Returning Board in its can- 
vass of tlie vote, lie was there simply to witness what was 
<lone; not to take part in the proceedings. 

These visitors of both pauties were given opportunities to 
witness the count, five of each party being there all the time. 
They were furnished with copies of all testimony taken ; 
a)id to simplify the work, the study of this testimony was dis- 
tributed out among individuals. General Garfield was given 
ail the papers regarding East Feliciana parish, which he thor- 
oughly examined, and even recalled and re-examined some of 
the witnesses. 

In the work before the Returning Board, that B(^ard allowed 
these witnesses to ask questions, and to take c(ipies of all the 
papers. Each party was also represented by counsel, who ar- 
gued the disputed points. 

This was the work of the "visiting statesmen." When the can- 
vassing of votes was completed, without waiting for or trying to in- 
fluence the result, General Garfield returned to Washington^ as 
did nearly all the others. 

It has been a question whether outsiders ought to have been at 
New Orleans at all in this emergency. Certainly a public man 
ran great risk of doing himself harm by going, and it required the 
utmost circums])ection to get out of it, clear from suspicion of evil. 
A year afterward this affair was examined by the Potter Committee, 



THE NOONTIDE.-THE ELECTOEAL COMMISSION. 291 

and of Garfield, the worst they could say was this: " AYe found no 
fault in him." 

But the struggle at New Orleans did not decide it all. When 
January came it was seen that there would still be trouble in de- 
ciding who were elected. It was feared by all that an attempt to 
decide by the existing laws, without the help of further provisions, 
might lead to serious difficulties. 

Accordingly, on January 29, 1877, there was passed iu the House 
a law providing for the Electoral Commission, a body to be com- 
posed of five Associate Justices of the Supreme Court, five Senators 
and five Representatives, to whom should be committed the duty of 
deciding, by their recommendation, the votes of any disputed States. 

General Garfield was opposed to this commission, which he thought 
an unha'ppy way of ending the trouble. His views are given in a 
speech made to the House, on January 25, wherein he said: 

" Wliat, then, are the grounds on which we should consider a hill like 
this? It would be unbecoming' in me or in any memher of this Con- 
gress to oppose this bill on mere technical or trifling grounds. It should 
be opposed, if at all, for reasons so broad, so weighty, as to overcome 
all that has been said in its favor, and all the advantages which I have 
here admitted may follow from its passage. I do not wish to diminish 
the stature of my antagonist ; I do not wish to undervalue the points of 
strength in a measure before I question its propriety. It is not enough 
that this bill will tide us over a present danger, however great. Let us 
for a moment forget Hayes and Tilden, Republicans and Democrats ; let 
us forget our own epoch and our own generation ; and, entering a broader 
field, inquire how this thing which we are about to do will affect the 
great future of our republic, and in what condition, if we pass this bill, 
we shall transmit our institutions to those who shall come after us. The 
present good which we shall achieve by it may be very great ; yet if the 
evils that will flow from it in the future must be greater, it would be 
base in us to flinch from trouble- by entailing remediless evils upon our 
children. 

" In my view, then, the foremost question is this: Wliat will Ije the 
effect of this measure upon our institutions? I can not make that iiiqm'i-v 
intelligibly without a brief reference to the history of the Constitution, 
and to some of the formidable questions which presented themselves ,to 



292 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

our fathers nearly a liundred years ago, when they set up this goodly 
frame of Government. 

"Among the foremost difficulties, both in point of time and magni- 
tu'le, was how to create an executive head of the Nation. Our fathers 
encountered that difficulty the first morning after they organized and 
elected the officers of the Constitutional Convention, llie fii'st resolution 
introduced by Randolph, of Virginia, on the 29th day of May, recog- 
ni/,eil that great question, and invited the Convention to its examina- 
tion. The n)en who made the Constitution were deeply read in the pro- 
foundest political philosophy of their day. They had learned from Mon- 
tesquieu, from Locke, from Fenelon, and other good teachers of the human 
race, that liberty is impossible without a clear and distinct separation oi- 
the three great powers of government. A generation before their epoch, 
Montesquieu had said : 

" ' Wlien the legislative and executive powers are united in the samts 
person or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty, be- 
cause apprehensions may arise lest the same monarch or senate shoul-j 
enact tyrannical laws and execute them in a tyrannical manner. 

'A: >;< * >i< t- * ;|i * 

" ' Tiiere would be an end of every thing were the same man or the same 
body, whether of the nobles or of the people, to exercise these three 
powers, that of enacting the laws, that of executing the public resolu- 
tions, and of trying the causes of individuals.' 

"This was a fundamental truth in the American mind, as it had long 
been cherished and practiced in the British empire. 

" There, as in all monarchies, the creation of a chief executive was 
easily regulated by adopting a dynasty, and following the law of primo- 
geniture. 

" But our fathers had drawn the deeper lesson of liberty from the in- 
spirations of this free New World, that their Chief Executive should be 
born, not of a dynasty, but of the will of a free people regulated by law. 

"In the course of their deliberations upon this subject, there were sug- 
gested seven different plans, which may be grouped under two principal 
heads or classes. One group comprised all the plans for creating the 
Chief Executive by means of some one of the preexisting political organ- 
iztitions of the country. First and foremost was the proposition to 
authorize one or both Houses of the National Legislature to elect the 
Chief Executive. Another was to confer that power upon the governors 



THE NOONTIDE.— THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION. 293 

of the States, or upon the legi.<hitures of the States. Another, that he 
should be chosen directly l)y the people themselves under the laws of the 
States. The second group comprised all the various plans for creating a 
new and separate instrumentality for making the choice. 

"At first the proposition that the Executive should be elected by the 
National Legislature was received by the Convention with almost unan- 
imous approval; and for the reason that up to that time Congress had 
done all that was done in the way of national government. It had created 
the nation and led its fortunes through a thousand perils, had declared 
and achieved independence, and had preserved the liberty of the people 
in the midst of a great war. Though Congress had failed to secure a 
firm and stable Government after the war, yet its glory was not forgotten. 
As Congress had created the Union, it was most natural that our fathers 
should say Congress should also create the Chief Executive of the nation. 
And within two weeks after the Convention assembled, they voted for 
that plan with absolute unanimity. 

"But with equal unanimity they agreed that this plan would be fatal 
to the stability of the Government they were about to establish, if they 
did not couple with it some provision that should make the President's 
functions independent of the power that created him. To effect this, 
they provided that the Pi-esident should be ineligible for reelection. They 
said it would never do to create a Chief Executive by the voice of the 
National Legislature, and then allow him to be reelected by that same 
voice ; for he would thus become their creature. 

"And so, from the first day of their session in May, to within five 
days of its close in September, they grappled with the mighty question. 
I have many times, and recently very carefully, gone through all the 
records that are left to us of that great transaction. I find that more 
than one-seventh of all the pages of the Madison papers are devoted to 
this Samson of questions, how the Executive should be chosen and made 
independent of the organization that made the choice. This topic alone 
occupied more than one-seventh of all the time of the Convention. 

" After a long and earnest debate, after numerous votes and recon- 
siderations, they were obliged utterly to abandon the plan of creating 
the Chief Executive by means of the National Legislature. I will not 
stop now to prove the statement by a dozen or more pungent quotations 
from the masters of political science in that great assembly, in whicli 
they declared that it would be ruinous to the liberty of the people and 



294 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

to the permanence of the Repubhc if they did not absohitely exclude the 
National Legislature from any share in the election of the President. 

" They pointed with glowing eloquence to the sad but instructive fate 
of those brilliant Italian republics that were destroyed because there was 
uo adequate separation of powers, and because their senates overwhelmed 
and swallowed up the executive power, and, as secret and despotic con- 
claves, became the destroyers of Italian liberty. 

"At the close of the great discussion, when the last vote on this 
subject was taken by our fathers, they were almost unanimous in ex- 
cluding the National Legislature from any share whatever in the choice 
of the Chief Executive of the nation. They rejected all the plans of 
the first group, and created a new instrumentality. They adopted the 
system of electors. When that plan was under discussion, they used 
the utmost precaution to hedge it about by every conceivable protection 
against the interference or control of Congress. 

"In the first place, they said the States shall create the electoral 
colleges. They allowed Congress to have nothing whatever to do with 
the creation of the colleges, except merely to fix the time when the 
States should appoint them. And, in order to exclude Congress by 
positive prohibition, in the last days of the Convention they provided 
that no member of either House of Congress should be appointed an 
elector ; so that not even by the j)ersonal influence of any one of its 
members could the Congress interfere with the election of a President. 

"The creation of a Piesident under our Constitution consists of three 
distinct ste}).s : First, the creation of the electoral colleges; second, the 
vote of colleges ; and third, the oi)eiiing and counting of their votes. 
This is the simple plan of the Constitution. 

"The creation of the culleges is left absolutely to the Stiites, within 
the five limitations I had the honor to mention to the House a few days 
ngo. First, it must be a State that appoints electors; second, the State 
is limited as to the number of electors it may appoint; third, electors 
shall not be members of Congress or officers of the United States ; 
fourth, the time for appointing electors may be fixed by Congress ; and, 
fifth, the time when their appointment is announced, which must be 
before the date for giving their votes, may also be fixed by Congress. 

"These five simple limitations, and these alone, were laid upon the 
States. Every other act, fact, and thing possible to be done in creating 
the electoral colleges was absolutely and uncontrollably in the power of 



THE NOONTIDE.— THE ELECTOEAL COMMISSION. 295 

the States themselves. Within those limitations, Congress has no more 
power to touch them in this work than England or France. That is the 
first step. 

" The second is still plainer and simpler, namely, the work of the 
colleges. They were created as an independent and separate power, or 
set of powers, for the sole purpose of electing a President. They were 
created by the States. Congress has just one thing to do with thera, 
and only one : it may fix the day when they shall meet. By the act of 
1792 Congress fixed the day as it still stands in the law; and there the 
authority of the Congress over the colleges ended. 

" There was a later act — of 1845 — which gave to the States the author- 
ity to provide by law for filling vacancies of electors in these colleges ; 
and Congress has passed no other law on the subject. 

" The States having created them, the time of their assemblage having 
been fixed by Congress, and their power to fill vacancies having been 
regulated by State laws, the colleges are as independent in the exercise 
of their functions as is any department of the Government within its 
sphere. Being thus equipped, their powers are restrained by a few^ simple 
limitations laid upon them by the Constitution itself: first, they must 
vote for a native-born citizen ; second, for a man who has been fourteen 
years a resident of the United States; third, at least one of the persons 
for whom they vote must not be a citizen of their own State; fourth, the 
mode of voting and certifying their returns is prescribed by the Consti- 
tution itself Within these simple and plain limitations the electoral 
colleges are absolutely independent of the States and of Congress. 

"One fact in the history of the Constitutional Convention, which I 
have not seen noticed in any of the recent debates, illustrates very clearly 
how careful our fathers were to preserve these colleges from the interfer- 
ence of Congress, and to protect their independence by the bulwarks of 
the Constitution itself In the draught of the electoral system reported 
September 4, 1787, it was provided that Congress ' may deterniine the 
time of choosing and assembling of the electors and the manner of certi- 
fying and transmitting their votes.' 

" That was the language of the original draught; but our fathers had 
determined that the National Legislature should have nothing to do with 
the action of the colleges ; and the words that gave Congress the power 
to prescribe the manner of certifying and transmitting their votes were 
stricken out. The instrument itself prescribed the mode. Thus Con- 



296 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

gress was wholly expelled from the colleges. The Constitution swept the 
ground clear of all intruders, and placed its own imperial guardianship 
around the independence of the electoral colleges by forbidding even Con- 
gress to enter the sacred circle. No Congres>man could enter; and, ex- 
cept to fix the day of their niceting, Congress could not speak to the 
electors. 

''These colleges are none the less sovereign and independent because 
they exist only for a day. They meet on the same day in all the States ; 
they do their work summarily in one day, and dissolve for ever. There 
is no power to interfere, no power to recall them, no power to revise their 
action. Their work is done; the record is made up, signed, sealed, and 
transmitted; and thus the second great act in the Presidential election is 
completed. I ought to correct myself; the second act is the Pi'esidential 
election. The election is finished the hour when the electoral colleges 
have cast their votes and sealed up the record. 

"Still, there is a third step in the process; and it is shorter, plainer, 
simpler than the other two. These sealed certificates of the electoral 
colleges are forwarded to the President of the Senate, where they rest 
under the silence of the seals for more than two months. The Constitu- 
tion assumes that the result of the election is still unknown. But on a 
day fixed by law, and the only day of all the days of February on which 
the law commands Congress to be in session, the last act in the plan of 
electing a President is to be performed. 

" How plain and simple are the words that describe this third and last 
step. Here they are : 

" ' The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of 
Representatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall 'dien be counted.' 

"Here is no ambiguity. Two words dominate and inspire the clause. 
They are the woi'ds ope)i and count. These words are not shrouded in the 
black-letter mysteries of the law. Tlu'v ai-c plain words, understood by 
every man who speaks our niolher-tonguc, and need no lexicon or com- 
mentary. 

" Consider tlio grnnd and simple ceremonial by which the third act is 
to be completed. Ou the day fixed by law the two Houses of Congress 
are :issemblcd. The President of the Senate, who, by the Constitution, 
has been made the custodian of the sealed certificates from all the electo- 
ral colleges, takes his place. The Constitution requires a 'person' and a 
'presence.' That 'person' is the President of the Senate; and that 



THE IsOONTIDE.— NATIONAL ELECTION. 297 

' presence' is the ' presence' of the two Houses. Then two things are to 
be done. The,certificates are to be opened, and the votes are to be counted. 
Tiiese are not legiskitive acts, but. clearly and plainly executive acts. I 
challenge any man to fiud anywhere an accepted definition of an executive 
act that does not include both these. They can not be tortured into a 
meaning that Avill carry them beyond the boundaries of executive aclieii. 
And one of these acts the President of the Senate is peremptorily ord.-ied 
to perform. The Constitution commands him to ' 0])en all the certificate s.' 
Certificates of what? Certificates of the votes of the electoral colleges. 
Not any certificates that any body may choose to send, but certificates of 
electors appointed by the States. The President of the Senate is presumed 
to know what are the States in the Union, Mho are their officers, and, 
when he opens the certificates, he learns from the official record who liave 
been appointed electors, and he finds their votes. 

"The Constitution contemplated the President of the Senate as the 
Vice-President of the United States, the elect of all the people. And to 
him is confided the great trust, the custodianship of the only official rec- 
ord of the election of President. What is it to 'open the certificates'? 
It would be a narrow and inadequate view of that Avord to sav that it 
means only the breaking of tlie seals. To open an envelope is not to 
' open the certificates.' The certificate is not the paper on which the rec- 
ord is made ; it is the record itself. To open the certificates is not a phys- 
ical but an intellectual act. It is to make patent the record ; to publish 
it. When that is done the election of President and Vice-President is 
published. But one thing remains to be done; and here the language of 
the Constituticm changes from the active to the passive voice, from the 
personal to the impersonal. To the trusted custodian of the votes suc- 
ceeds the impersonality of arithmetic; the votes have been made known ; 
there remains only the command of the Constitution : ' They shall be 
counted' — that is, the numbers shall lie added up. 

"No further act is required. The Constitution itself declares the 
result : 

'"The person having the greatest miniber of votes for President shall be Presi- 
dent, if such number be a majority of the wliole number of electors appointed.' 

"If no person has such majority, the House of Eepresentatives shall 
tmmedlately choose a President; not the House as organized for legislation, 
but a new electoral college is created out of the members of the House, 
by means of which each State has one vote for Pi-esident, and onlv one. 



298 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

"To review the ground over which I have traveled: The several acts 
that constitute the election of a President may be symbolized by a i:)yramid 
consisting of three massive, separate blocks. The first, the creation of the 
electoral college by the States, is the broad base. It embraces the legis- 
lative, the judicial, and the executive powers of the States. All the de- 
partments of the State govei'nment and all the voters of the State coope- 
rate in shaping and perfecting it. 

"The action of the electoral colleges forms the second block, perfect in 
itself, and independent of the others, superimposed with exactness upcm 
the first. 

"The opening and counting of the votes of the colleges is the little 
block that crowns and completes the pyramid.. 

Such, Mr. Speaker, was the grand aud simple plan by which the framers 
of the Constitution empowered all the people, acting under the laws of 
the several Statfes, to create special and select colleges of independent 
electors to choose a President, who should be, not the creature of Con- 
gress, nor of the States, but the Chief Magistrate of the whole Kation — 
the elect of all the people. 

But the Electoral Commission was constituted by law, and Gar- 
field himself chosen unanimously by his party as a member thereof 
He accepted, saying : " Since you have appointed me, I will serve. 
I can act on a committee when I do not believe in its validity." 
That fact could not affect the justice of his decisions. 

It is impossible to even hint at more than a small })ortion of 
the vast field of work which ()ccuj)ied General Garfield during 
this and the succeeding Congress. 

On November 16, 1877, he made a very able speech on tlio sub- 
ject of Resumption of Payments ; an address which would serve 
to perpetuate his fame, if ho had no other monument. 

In the Atlantic 3IonthIi/ of February, 1870, appeared an article 
from his pen, entitled "The Currency Conflict." On June 4, of 
the same year, he opposed, in an elaborate address, a tariff bill 
brought in by Mr. Morrison, of Illinois. 

June 22, 1876, was to him the "sad occasion dear" of a revival 
of precious memories. In the ])receding December liis old frieiul 
and fellow-student of Iliram, Miss Booth, had died, and this day 



THE NOONTIDE.— TEIBUTE TO MISS BOOTH. 299 

in June was appointed there for a memorial address by General 
Garfield. As at all such times when he spoke, we are struck with 
a sense of the wonderful delicacy of this man's nature, which re- 
sponded so perfectly to every delicate and holy sentiment known 
to the human heart. His very first words were : 

" J/r. President: You have called me to a duty at once most sad and 
most sacred. At. every step of my preparation for its performance, I 
have encountei-ed troops of thronging memories lliat swept across the 
field of the last twenty-five years of my life, and so filled my heart with 
the lights and shadows of their joy and sorrow that I have hardly been 
able to marshal them into order or give them coherent voice. I have 
lived over again the life of this jAace. I have seen again the groups 
of young and joyous students, ascending these green slopes, dwelling for 
a time on this peaceful height in happy and workful companionship, and 
then, with firmer step, and Avith more serious and thoughtful faces, 
marching away to their posts in the battle. of life. 

'And still nearer and clearer have come back the memories (jf tluit 
smaller band of friends, the leaders and guides of those who encamped 
on this training-ground. On ray journey to this assembly, it has seemed 
that they, too, were coming, and that I should once more meet and 
greet them. And I have not yet been able to realize that Almeda 
Booth will not be with us. After our great loss, how shall we gather 
up the fragments of the life we lived in this place ? We are mariners, 
treading the lonely shore in search of our surviving comrades and the 
fragments of our good ship, wrecked by the tempest. To her, indeed, 
it is no wreck. She has landed in safety, and ascended the immortal 
heights beyond our vision." 

The death of Michael C. Kerr having made necessary the selec- 
tion of a new Speaker, the Democratic majority in the House 
elected Samuel J. Randall, and the complimentary vote of the 
Republicans went to General Garfield. He was also their candi- 
date in the two succeeding Congresses. He had divided the honor 
of leadership pretty evenly with Mr. Blaine, until, in 1877, the 
latter gentleman went to the Senate, and left Garfield Avithout a 
rival. Fourteen years of able and faithful service had done their 
work grandly for his po\ver and his fame. 



300 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

On February 12, 1878, JNIrs. Elizabeth Thompson, of New York 
City, presented to Congress that great painting of Carpenter, " Lin- 
coln and Emancipation." At her request the presentation address 
was made by General Garfield. 

His important speeches during this Congress were even more 
numerous than usual ; especially in the special session held in the 
spring and summer of 1879. One of the best was that of February 
19, 1878, on the "Policy of Pacification, and the Prosecutions in 
Louisiana." At this time there were two serious political storms 
brewing in the air. First, there were divisions in the Republican 
party, and an alienation of some of its leaders from President 
Hayes; second, the Democratic party, with its cries of "fraud," 
concerning the last election, and its Potter Committee, and its 
prosecutions against the members of the Louisiana Returning 
Board, was trying to destroy the people's confidence in the Gov- 
ernment as then constituted. The latter quarrel no doubt was the 
salvation of the party concerned in the former. Its members ral- 
lied and united. Garfield was leader and chief promoter of Repub- 
lican harmony, as well as the strongest bulwark against the enemy. 

This speech of February 19 contains the following pithy para- 
graph, descriptive of the way in which the nation had passed 
through the transformations of war: 

"There was, first, the military stage — the period offeree, of open and 
bloody war — in which geutlemen of high character and honor met on 
the field, and decided by the power of the strongest the questions in- 
volved in the high court of war. That period passed, but did not leave 
us on the calm level of peace. It brought us to the period of transition, 
in which the eletnents of war and peace were mingled together in strange 
and anai-chic- confusion. It was a period of civil and military elements 
combined. All through that semi-military period the administration of 
General Grant had, of necessity, to conduct tlie country. His adniinis' 
tration was not all civil, it was not all military; it Avas necessarily a 
combination of both ; and out of that combination came many of the 
.strange and anomalous situations wiiich always follow such a war." 

Again : 

"Oar great military chieftain, who brought the war to a successful 



THE NOONTIDE.— ADDEESSES. 301 

conclusion, had command as chief executive during eight years of turbu- 
lent, difficult, and eventful administration. He saw his administration 
drawing to a close, and his successor elected — who, studying the questicm, 
came to the conclusion that the epoch had arrived, the hour had struck, 
when it was possible to declare that the semi-military period was end(Ml, 
and the era of peace methods, of civil processes, should be fully inaugu- 
rated. With that spirit, and at the beginning of this third era, Rutliei- 
ford B. Hayes came into the Presidency. I ought to say that, in ]ny 
judgment, more than any other public man we have known, the present 
head of the administration is an optimist. He looks on the best side of 
tilings. He is hopeful for the future, and prefers to look upon the 
bright side rather than upon the dark and sinister side of human nature. 
His faith is larger than the faith of most of us ; and with his fiiith and 
hope he has gone to the very verge of the Constitution in offering both 
hands of fellowship and all the olive-branches of peace to bring back 
good feeling, and achieve the real pacification to this country." 

After this came a brief protest against the Bland Silver Bill, 
February 28, 1878. On March 6, 1878, he delivered his "New 
Scheme of American Finance," being in answer to a personal 
attack of William D. Kelley, the great protective tariff advo- 
cate, of Pennsylvania. Other addresses were, " The Army and 
the Pubhc Peace," May 21, 1878; reply to Mr. Tucker on the 
"Tariff," June 4,1878; "Honest Money," a speech delivered 
at Boston, in Faneuil Hall, September 10, 1878; "Suspension 
and Resumption of Specie Payments," at C?ncago, January 2, 
1879, before the Honest Money League of the North-west; in 
memory of Joseph Henry, January 16, 1879 ; " Relation of Gov- 
ernment to Science," February 11, 1879 ; in memory of the late 
Hon. Gustave Schleicher, February 17, 1879 ; and a very inter- 
esting speech of February 26, 1879, about the " Sugar Tariff." 

When March 3,1879, came, the Forty-Fifth Congress went out 
with much of its important business undone ; two of the great ap- 
propriation bills had not passed on account of political difficul- 
ties. The Democrats attempted to force assent to some of 
their schemes by tacking their propositions to the Appropritioii 
bill. But this measure the Republicans resisted to the last. 
And so it happened that in March, 1879, President Hayes wat> 



302 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

obliged to call uu extra session. But here the old fight was 
renewed, and a long "dead lock" followed. 

Throughout this strngglo, Garfield was the central figure in 
the front rank of his party in tlic llonsc. Scarcely had Con- 
gress assembled when the old Army Bill was reported. Then, 
in Committee of the AVholc, the old "rider'' was move<l 
as an amendment. The Chair decided this amendment in 
order, whereupon there was great indignation on the l{e[)ub- 
lican side, and a remarkable debate ensued. Garfield made his 
principal protest while things were in this situation, on March 
29, 1879, in a speech entitled " Revolution in Congress." 

Throughout this special session the fierce heat of political 
conflict grew more intense every day, like the sun whose burn- 
ing rays beat down upon the Capitol. On April 4, Garfield 
spoke again on the subject which had occupied his attention 
six days before. April 26, he spoke on the passage of the 
Legislative Appropriation Bill ; May 17, against unlimited 
coinage of silver; June 19, on the Judicial Appropriation Bill; 
June 21, concerning a proposed survey of the Mississippi River, 
in the course of which he said : 

"But for myself, I believe that one of the grandest of our material na- 
tional interests — one that is national in the largest material sense of that 
word — is the Mississippi River and its navigable tributaries. It is the 
most gigantic single natural feature of our continent, far transcending 
the glory of the ancient Nile or of any other river on the earth. The 
statesmanship of America must grapple the problem of this mighty 
stream. It is too vast for any State to handle; too much for any au- 
thority less than that of the nation itself to manage. And I believe the 
time will come when the liberal-minded statesmanship of this country 
will devise a wise and comprehensive system, that will harness the low- 
ers of this great river to the material interests of America, so that not 
only all the people who live on its banks and the banks of its confluents, 
but all the citizens of the Republic, whether dwellers in the central vnl- 
ley or on the slope of either ocean, will recognize the imyvn-tance of 
preserving and perfecting this great natural and material bond of national 
union between the North and the South — a bond to bo so strengthened 
by commerce and intercourse that it can never be severed." 



THE NOONTIDE.- UNrn*:D STATES MARSHALS. 303 

Thus refreshed by something more liberal than the recent 
discussions in which he had been engaged, Garfield soon re- 
sumed the struggle, and on June 27, 1879, gave the Demo- 
cratic party and the South a regular broadside on " State Sov- 
ereignty." 

The S[>ecial Session of 1879 came to an end on July 1st. At 
its beginning the dominant power in the House loudly pro- 
claimed its intention to push its measures through at all haz- 
ards. The appropriation bills, with their obnoxious "riders," 
were passed ; the President vetoed them. It then became a 
question of revolution or yielding. There was no revolution! 
Every dollar called for by the Government was voted, except 
the pay of the United States marshals, who overcame the 
difficulty by paying their own expenses, trusting a future ses- 
sion of Congress to repay them. 

According to his custom, General Garfield spoke often dur- 
ing the Ohio campaign of 1879; a good specimen of Ids stump 
speeches is the one at Cleveland, on October 11th, of this yein\ 
At the Andersonville Reunion, held in Toledo, Ohio, on Octo- 
ber od, he had been present and addressed the throng of Lliiion 
soldiers and ex-prisoners wdio met there. 

During the regular sessions of the Forty-Sixth Congress his 
activity was undiminished. In his speech of March 17, dur- 
ing the discussion of a bill to pay the United States marsiials 
for the year ending June 30, 1880, we find such sterling utter- 
ances as these': 

"Mr. Chairman : When I took my seat as a member of this House, I 
took it with all the .responsibilities which the place brought upon me; 
and among others was my duty to keep the obligations of the law. 
Where the law speaks in mandatory terms to every body else and then to 
me, I should deem it cowardly and dishonorable if I should skulk behind 
my legislative privilege for tlie purpose of disobeying and breaking the 
supreme law of the land. 

"The issue now mnde is somewhat different from that of the last ses- 
sion, but, in my judgment, it is not less siginficnnt and dangerous. I 
would gladly waive any party advantage which this controversy might 



304 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

give for the sake of that calm and settled peace which would reign in 
this Hall if we all obeyed the law. But if the leaders on the other side 
are still determined to rush upon their fate by forcing upon the country 
this last issue — that because the Democratic party happen not to like a 
law they will not obey it — because they happen not to approve of the 
spirit and character of a law they will not let it be executed— I say to 
gentlemen on the other side, if you are determined to make such an issue, 
it is high time that the American people should know it. 

" Here is the volume of our laws. More sacred than the twelve tables 
of liome, this rock of the law rises in monumental grandeur alike above 
the 2jeople.and the President, above the courts, above Congress, com- 
manding everywhere reverence and obedience to its supreme authority. 
Yet the dominant party in this House virtually declares that ' any part 
of this volume that we do not like and can not repeal we will disobey. 
We have tried to repeal these election laws; we have failed because we 
had not the constitutional power to destroy them ; the Constitution says 
they shall stand in their authority and power; but we, the Democratic 
party, in defiance of the Constitution, declare that if we can not destroy 
them outright by the repeal, they shall be left to crumble into ruin by 
wanton and lawless neglect.' 

" Mr. Chairman, by fiir the most formidable danger that threatens the 
Republic to-day is the spirit of law-breaking which shows itself in many 
turbulent and alarming manifestations. The people of the Pacific Coast, 
after two years of wrestling with the spirit of communism in the city of 
San Fi'ancisco, have finally grappled with this lawless spirit, and the 
leader of it was yesterday sentenced to penal servitude as a violator of the 
law. But what can we say to Denis Kearney and his associates if to-day 
we announce ourselves the foremost law-breakers of the country and set 
an example to all the turbulent and vicious elements of disorder to fol- 
low us? 

"I ask, gentlemen, whether this is a time when it is safe to disregard 
and weaken tlie authority of law. In all quarters the civil society of this 
country is becoming honeycombed through and through by disintegrating 
forces — in some States by the violation of contracts and the repudiation 
of debts; in others by open resistance and defiance; in still others by the 
reckless overturning of constitutions and letting the 'red fool fury of the 
Seine' run riot among our people and build its blazing altars to the strange 
gods of ruin and misrule. All these things are shaking the good order of 



THE NOONTIDE.— SENATOR. 305 

society and threatening the foundations of our Government and our peace. 
In a time like this, more than ever before, this country needs a body of 
lawgivers clothed and in their right minds, who have laid their hands 
upon the altar of the law as its defenders, nut its destroyers." 

April o, 1880, General Garfield made a trenchant argument 
against a pet measure of the greenback apostle, IVIr. Weaver. 
Five days afterward occurred a debate between Garfield and 
McMalion, also of Ohio, on the pending Appropriation bill. 

On May first he made a personal explanation, defending his 
committee action in regard to the so-called wood-pulp mo- 
nopoly. This pulp is obtained from soft wood and used in 
the manufacture of paper. The newspapers everywhere were 
calling for a removal of the duty on this their great necessity'. 
Garfield stood out for a ten per cent, tariff", as a protection to 
our manufacturers from the Canadian manufacturers, who had 
no royalties to pay, and therefore could have undersold us. 
In this speech Gayfield met the charge of being a monopoly 
supporter, and vindicated, his policy on tlie disputed question. 

Turning aside from this well-fought field where Garfield 
had so long stood, as a great representative of all that is good 
in the recent legislative history of our country, it is time to 
view the new honors which were now preparing for him. 

On the fourteenth of January, 1880, the Ohio Legislature 
elected James A. Garfield to the United States Senate, to 
succeed Mr. Thurman, whose term was to expire in the fol- 
lowing March. So thoroughly had Garfield recovered from the 
wave of scandal which a few years earlier had swept over but 
could not overwhelm him, that he was the unanimous choice 
of his party; and the Democratic minority itself cordially 
united to make his election unanimous. All this came en- 
tirely without solicitation from him for such an honor. 

At .an informal reception held in the Capitol at Columbus, the 
evening after his election, General Garfield was called upon for 
a speech. In response, he made a brief and appropriate address. 
The following is an extract therefrom : 
2i) 



306 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAKFIELD. 

•* Fellow-Citizens: — I should be a great deal more than a man, or a 
great deal less than a man, if I were not extremely gratified by this mark 
of vour kindness you have shown me in reqent days. I did not expect 
anv such meeting as this. I knew there was a greeting awaiting me, but 
1 (lid not expect so cordial, generous, and general a greeting, without 
distinction of party, without distinction of interests, as I have received 
here to-night. And you will allow me in a moment or two to si^eak ol' 
t!ie memories this chamber awakens. 

"1 recognize the importance of the place to which you have elected 
me, and I should be base if I did not also recognize the great man whom 
vou have elected me to succeed. I say for him, Ohio has had few larger- 
minded, broader-minded men in the records of our history than that of 
Allen G, Thurman. Differing widely from him as I have done in poll- 
tics, and do, I recognize hira as a man high in character and great in in 
tellect; and I take this occasion to refer to what I have never before 
referred to in public — that many years ago, in the storm of party fight- 
ing, when the air was filled with all sorts of missiles aimed at the charac- 
ter and reputation of public men, when it was even for his party interest 
to join the general clamor against me and my associates, Senator Thurman 
said in public, in the campaign, on the stump, — where men are as likely 
to say unkind things as at aiiy place in the world, — a most generous and 
earnest word of defense and kindness for me, which I shall never forget 
as long as I live. I say, moreover, that the flowers that bloom over the 
garden wall of party politics are the sweetest and most fragrant that bloom 
in the gardens of this world ; and where we can early pluck them and 
enjoy their fi-agrance, it is manly and delightful to do so. 

"And now, gentlemen of the General Assembly, without distinction of 
party, I recognize this tribute and compliment made to me to-night. 
Whatever my own course may be in the future, a large share of the hi- 
spiration of my future public life will be drawn from this occasion and 
these surroundings, and I shall ftel anew the sense of obligation that I 
owe to the State of Ohio. Let me venture to point a single sentence in 
regard to that work. During the twenty years that I have been in pub- 
lic life, almost eighteen of it in the Congress of the United States, I have 
tried to do one thing. Whether I was mistaken or otherwise, it has been 
the plan nf my life to f )llow my convictions at whatever personal cost to 
myself I have represented for many years a district in Congress whose 
i.pprobation I greatly desired ; but though it may seem, perhaps, a little 



THE NOONTIDE.— SEX A TOE. 307 

egotistical to say it, I yet desired still more the approbiition of one per- 
son, and his name is Garfield. He is the only man that I am com- 
pelled to sleep with, aiid eat with, and live with, and die with; and if I 
could not have his approbation, I should have bad companionship. And 
in this larger constituency which has called me to represent them now, I 
can only do what is true to my best self, applying the same rules. And 
if I should be so unfortunate as to lose the confidence of this larger con- 
stituency, I must do what every other fair-minded man has to do — carry 
his political life in his hand and take the consequences. But I must 
fallow what seems to me to be the only safe rule of my life; and with 
that view of the case, and with that much personal reference, I leave 
the subject. 

" Thanking you again, fellow-citizens, members of the General Assem- 
bly, Republicans and Democrats — all, party man as I am,— thanking you 
both for what you have done and for this cordial and manly greeting, I 
bid you good-night." 



308 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 



CHAPTER IX. 

GREAT QUEHTIOXS AND GREAT ANSWERS. 
"Who shall make answer on such themes as these?" 

IT is now appropriate to consider somewhat in extcnso the 
claims of James A. Garfield to be regarded as a statesman. It 
must needs be in the life of every public man, more particularly 
in the life of a Congressman, and more particularly still in the life 
of him who has risen to the rank of leader of the House, that he 
speak much on questions of passing interest. Many of the topics 
which engage his attention flit away with the occasion which gave 
them birth. They are the issues of the day, creatures of prejudice 
and partisanship. Hence in the history of the life of a public 
man, many paragraphs will be found which merely recount the bat- 
tles fought and victories won in the ordinary contests of the arena. 

In the most marked contrast with this, however, is another class 
of questions which rise to the level of p>erpetual interest, affecting 
not only the destinies of the hour, but pregnant with the fate of the 
future. Not questions of the day are these, passing like a shadow 
over the landscape of current events ; but shining rather like those 
orbs from whose disks the efililgence is shed which makes shadows 
possible. Albeit, there are themes of statesmanship vitally affecting 
the life of the nation ; and only he, who in the heated arena of 
})ublic life shows himself able to grapple with such problems, is 
worthy of the name of statesman. 

Was James A. Garfield a statesman? In considering this (jucs- 
tion, and finding therefor a fitting answer, it is necessary clearly to 
understand what are the leading themes of American statesman- 
ship. Perhaps. a fair analysis of this great question will show that 
those topics of public discussion which rise to the dignity of ques- 
tions of statesmanship will present about four leading heads: 

I. Questions affecting the Nationality of the United 
States. 



GEEAT QUESTIONS AND GEEAT ANSWEES. 309 

II. Questions affecting the Fixancial axd Moxetary sys- 
tems OF THE UjflTED StATES. 

III. Questions affecting the Revenue and Expenditures 
OF the United States. 

IV. Questions concerning the General Character and 
Tendency of American Institutions. 

If it be shown that James A. Garfiekl proved himself able t<< 
grasp and discuss any or ail of the great questions falling under 
this comprehensive classification, in such a manner as to throw new 
light upon thena, to fix the status of public opinion regarding them, 
and to that extent to build more securely than hitherto the sub- 
structure ot American greatness, then indeed is he worthy of the 
name of statesman. Let us then, without fear or partiality, apply 
the crucial test to Garfield's public life, and see whether indeed he 

is the peer and fit companion for the great names of our history 

for Hamilton, and Adams, and Webster, and Sumner, and Chase. 

Before beginning this discussion, however, it/wdll be necessarv 
to remind the reader, that in considering the claims of Garfield to 
the rank of statesman under the outline presented above, the chrono- 
logical order of the narrative will be broken up, and such a group- 
ing made of his public speeches and papers as will best illus- 
trate his views and establish his rank among the great men of our 
country. 

First, then, as to questions affecting the Nationality of the 
United States. What is the record of him whose life is here re- 
counted concerning those great and vital themes upon which rests 
our perpetuity as a nation? Three utterances, his earliest, his lat- 
est, and his most characteristic, must be taken as representatives 
of the entire class. 

^ On February 1, 1866, being thirty-five years of age, he presented 
his views on the general question of the restoration of the States- 
lately in rebellion: 

THIS IS a nation. 

"The word 'State', as it has been used by gentlemen in this discus- 
sion, has two meanings, as perfectly distinct as though different words 
hud been used to express them. The confusion arising from applying 



310 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

the same word to two different and dissimilar objects, has had very much 
to do with the diverse conclusions which gentlemen have reached. They 
have given us the definition of a 'state' in the contemplation of public 
or international law, and have at once applied that definition and the con- 
clusions based upon it, to the States of the American Union and the effects 
of war upon them. Let us examine the two meanings of the word, 
and endeavor to keep them distinct in their application to the questions 
before us. 

" Phillimore, the great English publicist, says: 'For all the purposes 
of international law, a state {demos, civitas, volk) may be defined to be a 
]>enple j)ermanently occupying a fixed teriitory, bound together by common 
hiws, habits, and customs, into one body-politic, exercising through the 
medium of an organized government, independent sovereignty and con- 
trol over all persons and things within its boundaries, capable of making 
war and peace, and of entering into all international relations with the 
other communities of the globe.' — Phillimore' s International Law, vol. i, 
sec. 05. 

"Substantially the same definition maybe found in Grotius, book one, 
chapter one, section fourteen; in Burlamaqui, volume two, part one, 
chapter four, section nine; and in Vattel, book one, chapter o^ie. The 
primary point of agreement in all these authorities is, that in contem- 
plation of international law a state is absolutely sovereign, acknowledg- 
ing no superior on earth. In that sense the United States is a state, a 
sovereign state, just as Great Britain, France, and Russia are states, 

"But what is the meaning of the word State as applied to Ohio or 
Alabama? Is either of them a state in the sense of international law? 
They lack all the leading requisites of such a state. They are only th,e 
^geographical subdivisions of a state; and thougli endowed by the people 
of the United States with the rights of local self-government, yet in all 
their external relations their sovereignty is completely destroyed, being 
merged in the supreme Federal Government. — IlallecJcs International Law, 
■sec. 16, page 71, 

" Ohio can not make war; can not conclude peace ; can not make a treaty 
with any foreign government, can not even make a compact with her sis- 
ter States, can not regulate commerce; can not coin money; and has no 
Hig. ' These indispensable attributes of sovereignty, the State of Ohio 
(lups not possess, nor does any other State of the Union. We call them 
States for want of a better name. We call tliem States, because the 



GREAT QUESTIONS AND GKEAT ANSWERS. 311 

original Thirteen liad been so designated before the Constitution was 
formed, but that Constitution desti'oyed all the sovereignty which those 
States were ever supposed to possess in reference to external afiairs. 

"I submit, Mr. Speaker, that the five great publicists— Grotius, Puf- 
i'endorf, Bynkershoek, Burhimaqui, and Vattel, who have been so often 
quoted in this debate, and all of whom wrote more than a quarter of a 
ceutury, and some nearly two centuries before our Constitution was 
formed, can hardly be quoted as good authorities in regard to the nature 
and legal relationships of the component States of the American Union. 

"Even my colleague from the Columbus District [Mr. Shellabarger], 
in his very able discussion of this question, spoke as though a State of 
this Union was the same as a state in the sense of international law, 
with certain qualities added. I think he must admit that nearly all the 
leading attributes of such a state are taken from it when it becomes a 
State of the Union. 

"Several gentlemen, during this debate, have quoted the well known 
doctrine of international law, ' that war annuls all existing compacts and 
treaties between belligerents;' and they have concluded, therefore, that 
our war has broken the Federal bond and dissolved the Union. This 
would be true, if the rebel States were states in the sense of interna- 
tional law — if our Government were not a sovereign nation, but only a 
league between sovereign states. I oppose to this conclusion the unan- 
swerable proposition that this is a nation ; that the rebel States are not 
sovereign states, and therefore their failure to achieve independence was 
a failure to break the Federal bond — to dissolve the Union 

"In view of the peculiar character of our Government, in what condi- 
tion did the war leave the i-ebel States?" 

He argued that by the admission of a State to the Union, the 
laws of the United States were extended to it. .1 State might 
violate one of these laics, but could 7mt annul it. Each rebel State 
exerted every po^ver to break away from these laws, but was unable 
to destroy or invalidate one of them. Each rebel State let go of 
the Union, but the Union did not let go cf it : 

"Let the stars of heaven illustrate our constellation of States. When 
* rod launched the planets upon their celestial pathway, He bound them 
aJ-' by the resistless power of attraction to the central sun, around which 



312 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAKFIELD. 

they revolved in their iippointed orbits. Each may be swept by storms, 
may be riven by lightnings, may be rocked by earthquakes, may be de- 
vastated by all the terrestrial forces and overwhelmed in ruin, but far away 
in the everlasting depths the sovereign sun holds the turbulent planet in 
its place. This earth may be overwhelmed until tlie high hills are cov- 
ered by the sea ; it may tremble with earthquakes miles below the soil, 
but it must still revolve in its appointed orbit. So Alabama may over- 
whelm all her municipal institutions in ruin, but she can not annul the 
omnipjtent decrees of the sovereign peuple of the Union. She must l>e 
held forever in her orbit of obedience and duty. 

;l; >i. * ;•= * * -;j * 

"Xow, let us inquire how the surrender of the military power of the 
rebellion affected the legal condition of those States. When the rebellion 
collapsed, and the last armed man of the Confederacy surrendered to 
our forces, I affirm that there was not in one of those States a single 
government that we did or could recognize. There Avas not in one of 
those States, from governor down to constable, a single man whom we 
could recognize as authorized to exercise any official function whatever. 
They had formed governments alien and hostile to the Union. Not only 
had their officers taken no oaths to support the Constitution of the 
United States, but they had heaped oath upon oath to destroy it. 

"I go further. I hold that there were in those States no constitutions 
of any binding force and effect; none that we could recognize. A con- 
stitution, in this case, can mean nothing less than a constitution of 
government. A constitution must constitute something, or it is no 
constitution. When we speak of the constitution of Alabama, we mean 
the constitution of the government of Alabama. When the rebels sur- 
rendered, there remained no constitution in Alabama, beq^use there 
remained no government. Those States reverted into our hands by 
victorious war, with every municipal right and every municipal authority 
utterly and completely swept away." 

After citing fi-oni th(^ liighest authorities on the laws of war, he 
.sums up the legal status of the rebellious states as follows: 

" 1. That, by conquest, the United States obtained complete control 
of the rebel territory. 

" 2. That every vestige of numieipal authority in those States was, b} 
secession, rebellion, and the conquest of the rebeUion, utterly destroyed. 



I 



GREAT QUESTIONS AND GREAT ANSWERS. 313 

"3. That the state of war did not terminate with the actual cessation 
of hostilities, but that, under the laws of war, it was the duty of the 
President, as commander-in-chief, to establish governments over the con- 
quered people of the ini^uigent States, which governments, no matter 
what may be their form, are really military governments, deriving their 
sole i)o\ver from the President. 

"4. That the governments thus established, are valid while the state 
of Avar continues and until Congress acts in the case. 

"5. That it belongs exclusively to the legislative authority of the 
Government to determine the political status of the insurgent States, 
either by adopting the governments the President has established, or by 
permitting the people to form others, subject to the approval of Con- 
gress. 

"It was time for Congress to act. That action sliould recognize, first, 
the stupendous facts of the war. By the Emancipation Proclamation we 
not only declared the slaves free, but pledged the faith of the nation to 
'maintain their freedom.' What is freedom? It is no mere negative; 
no mere privilege of not being chained, bought and sold, branded or 
scourged. It is a tangible realization of the truths that * all men are 
created free and equal,' and that the sanction of just government is the 
' consent of the governed.' 

"These truths can never be realized until each man has a right to be 
heard in all' matters concerning himself. .... 

" I remember an incident in the history of the eastern church, as re- 
corded by Gibbon, volume two, chapter twenty-eight, which illustrates 
the power that slavery has exercised among us. The Christians of 
that day, under the lead of Theophilus, undertook to destroy the heathen 
temples. Gibbon says: 

"'Theophilus proceeded to demolish the temple of Serapis without 
any other difficulties than those which he found in the weight and solid- 
ity of the materials, but these obstacles proved so insuperable that he 
was obliged to leave the foundations and to content himself Avith reducing 
the edifice itself to a heap of rubbish, a part of which was soon after- 
ward cleared away to make room for a church, erected in honor of the 
Christian martyrs. 

" ' The colossal statue of Serapis was involved in the ruin of his tem- 
ple and religion. A great number of plates of different metals, arti- 
ficially joined together, composed the majestic figure of the deity, who 



314 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

touched on either side the walls of the sanctuary. The aspect of Serapis, 
his sitting posture, and the scepter, which he bore in his left hand, were 
extremely similar to the ordinary- representations of Jupiter. He was 
distinguished from Jupiter by the basket, or bushel, which was placed 
on his head, and by the emblematic monster which he held in his right 
hand, the head and body of a serpent branching into three tails, whicii 
were again terminated by the triple heads of a dog, a lion, and a 
wolf. It was confidently affirmed that if any impious hand should dare 
to violate the majesty of the god, the heavens and earth would instantly 
return to the original chaos. An intrepid soldier, animated by zeal, and 
armed with a weighty battle-ax, ascended the ladder, and even the Chris- 
tian multitude expected with some anxiety the event of the combat. He 
aimed a vigorous stroke against the cheek of Serapis ; the cheek fell to 
the ground ; the thunder was still silent, and both the heavens and 
the earth continued to preserve their accustomed order and tranquillity. 
The victorious soldiej- repeated his blows, the huge idol was overthrown 
and broken in pieces, and the limbs of Serapis were ignominiously 
dragged through the streets of Alexandria. His mangled carcass was 
buint in the amphitheater amid the shouts of the populace, and many 
persons attributed their conversion to this discovery of the impotence of 
their tutelary deity.' 

" So slavery sat in o^ir national Capitol. Its huge bulk filled the tem- 
ple of our liberty, touching it from side to side. jNIr. Lincoln, on the 1st 
of January, 1868, struck it on the cheek, and the faithless and unbeliev- 
ing among us expected to see the fabric of our institutions dissolve into 
chaos because their idol had fallen. He struck it again ; Congress and 
the States repeated the blow, and its unsightly carcass lies rotting in 
our streets. The sun shines in the heavens brighter than before. Let 
us remove the carcass and leave not a vestige of the monster. We sli.ill 
never have done that until we have dared to come up to the spirit of the 
Pilgrim covenant of 1620, and declare that all men shall be consulted in 
regard to the disposition of their lives, liberty, and property. The Pil- 
grim fathers proceeded on the doctrine that every man was supp :)sed to 
know best what he wanted, and had the right to a voice in tlie disposi- 
tion of himself." 

A second fact to be recognized was that 7,000,000 white men 
were waiting to have their case adjudged and their political status 
fixed. 



GREAT »4UEST10>^S AND GREAT ANSWERS. 315 

"As to j)ersons we must see to it tliat hereafter persontil liberty and per- 
gonal i-ights ai-e placed iu the keeping of the nation ; that the right to 
life, liberty, and property are to be guaranteed to citizens in reality, and 
not left to the caprice of mobs and contingencies of local legislation. 
. . . . As to States, the burden of proof rests on each one of them, 
ti) show whether it is fit to enter the Federal ci.-rle in full communion of 
j'livileges. Men can not change their hearts — love what they hated, 
u-.id hate what they loved — upon the issue of a battle; but our duty is 
to demand that before we admit them they shall give sufficient assurance 
that, whatever they believe or wish, their action in the future shall be 
such as loyal men can approve." 

How far does that speech differ from the reconstruction policy 
actually adopted ? 

Thirteen years later, on June 27, 1879, the pending bill being 
one for the appropriations for United States marshals, General 
Garfield said : 

"Mr. Chairman: 'To this favor' it has come at last. The great 
fleet that set out on the 18th of March, with all its freightage and arma- 
ment, is so shattered that now all the valuables it carried are endiarked 
in this little craft, to meet whatever fate the sea and the storm may offer. 
This little bill contains the residuum of almost every thing that lias been 
the subject of controversy at the present session. I will not discr.ss it in 
detail, but will speak only of its central feature, and especially of the 
opinions which tlie discussion of that feature has brought to the surface 
during the present session. The majority in this Congress have adopted 
what I consider very extreme and dangerous opinions on certain impor- 
tant constitutional questions. They have not only drifted back to their 
old attitude on the subject of State Sovereignty, but they nave pushed 
that doctrine much further than most of their predecessors ever went be- 
fore, exc pt during the period immediately preceding the late wai-. 

"Let me summai'ize them: First, there are no national elections; 
second, the United States has no voters; third, the States have the exclu- 
sive right to control all elections of members of Congress; rourth, the 
senators and representatives in Congress are State officers, or, as they 
have been called duiing the present session, 'embassadors' or 'agents' of 
the State; fifth, the United States lias no authority to keep the peace any 
where within a State, and, iu fact, has no peace to keep; sixth, the 



316 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

United States is not a Nation endowed with sovereign power, but is a con- 
federacy of States ; seventh, the States are sovereignties possessing inherent 
supreme powers ; they are older than the Union, and as independent 
sovereignties the state governments created the Union and determined 
and limited the powers of the General Government. 

" These declarations embody the sura total of the constitutional doc- 
trines which the Democracy has avowed during this extra session of Con- 
gress. They form a body of doctrines which I do not hesitate to say are 
more extreme than was ever before held on this subject, except, perhaj^s, 
at the very crisis of secession and rebellion. 

" Firmly believing that these doctrines and attempted practice of the 
present Congress are erroneous and pernicious, I will state briefly the 
counter-propositions : 

"I affirm : first, that the Constitution of the United States was not cre- 
ated by the governments of the States, but was ordained and established 
by the only sovereign in this country — the common superior of both the 
States and the Nation — the people themselves; second, that the United 
States is a Nation, having a government whose powers, as defined and 
limited by the Constitution, operate upon all the States in their corporate 
capacity and upon all the peoj^le; third, that by its legislative, executive, 
and judicial authority tlie Nation is armed with adequate power to enforce 
all the provisions of the Constitution against all opposition of individuals 
or of States, at all times and all places within the Union. 

" These are broad propositions ; and I take tlie few minutes remaining 
to defend them. The constitutional history of this country, or, rather, 
the history of sovereignty and government in this country, is comprised 
in four sharply defined epochs : 

" First. Prior to the 4th day of July, 1776, sovereignty, so far as it 
can be affirmed of this country, was lodged in the crown of Great Britain. 
Every member of every colony (the colonists were not citizens, but sub- 
jects) drew his legal rights from the crown of Great Britain. ' Every 
acre of land in this country was then held mediately or immediately by 
grants from that crown,' and ' all the civil authority then existing or ex- 
ercised here flowed from the head of the British empire.' 

" Second. On the 4th day of July, 1776, the people of these colonies, 
asserting their natural inherent right as sovereigns, withdrew the sov- 
ereignty from the crown of Great Britain, and reserved it to themselves. 
In so far as they delegated this national authority at all, they delegated 



GEE AT QUESTIONS AND GREAT ANSWERS. 317 

it to the Continental Congress assembled at Philaclelpliia. That Con- 
gress, by geneial consent, became the supreme government of this 
country — executive, judicial, and legislative in one. During the whole 
of its existence it wielded the supreme power of the new Nation. 

"Third. On the 1st day of March, 1781, the same sovereign power, 
the people, withdrew the authority from the Continental Congress, and 
lodged it, so far as they lodged it at all, with the Confederation, which, 
though a league of States, was declared to be a perpetual union. 

" Fourth. When at last our fiithers found the Confederation too weak 
and inefficient for the purposes of a great nation, they abolished it, and 
lodged the national authority, enlarged and strengthened by new powers, 
in the Constitution of the United States, where, in spite of all assaults, it 
still remains. All these great acts were done by the only sovereign in 
this Republic, the people themselves. 

"That no one may charge that I pervert history to sustain niv own 
theories, I call attention to the fact that not one of the colonies declared 
itself free and independent. Neither Virginia nor ]\Iassachusetts threw 
off" its allegiance to the British crown as a colony. The great declaiation 
was made not even by all thte colonies as colonies, but it Avas made in 
the name and by authority of 'all the good people of the colonies' as 
one people. 

"Mr. Chairman, the dogma of State Sovereignty, which has re-awak- 
ened to such vigorous life in this chamber, has borne such bitter fruits 
and entailed such suffering upon our j^eople that it deserves more par- 
ticular notice. It should be noticed that the word' 'sovereignty' can not 
be fitly applied to any government in this country. It is not found in 
our constitution. It is a feudal word, born of the despotism of the 
Middle Ages, and was unknown even in imperial Rome. A 'sovereign' 
is a person, a prince, who has subjects that owe him allegiance. There 
is no one paramount sovereign in the United States. There is no person 
here who holds any title or authority whatever, except the official 
authority given him by law. Americans are not subjects, but citizens. 
Our only sovereign is the Avhole people. To talk about the 'inherent 
sovereignty' of a corporation — an artificial person — is to talk nonsense ^ 
and we ought to reform our habit of speech on that subject. 

"But what do gentlemen mean when they tell us that a State is sov- 
ereign? What does sovereignty mean in its accepted use, but a politi.- 
cal corporation having no superior? Is a State of this Union such a 



318 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

corporation? Let us test it by sx few exanijiles drawn from the Consti- 
tution. No State of this Union can make war or conclude a })eace. 
Without the consent of Congress it can not raise or support an army or 
a navy. It can not make a treaty with a foreign power, nor enter into 
any agreement or compact with another State. It can not levy imposts 
01- duties on imports nor exports. It can not coin money. It can not 
regulate commerce. It can not authorize a single ship to go into com- 
mission anywhere on the high seas ; if it should, that ship would be seized 
as a pirate or confiscated by the laws of the United States. A State can 
not emit bills of credit. It can enact no law which makes any thing but 
gold and silver a legal tender. It has no flag except the flag of the 
Union. And there are many other subjects on which the States are for- 
bidden by the Constitution to legislative. 

"How much inherent sovereignty is left in a corporation which is thus 
shorn of all these great attributes of sovereignty ? 

"But this is not all. The Supreme Court of the United States may 
declare null and void any law or any clause of the constitution of a State 
which happens to be in conflict with the Constitution and laws of the 
United States. Again, the States appear ^s plaintiffs and defendants be- 
fore the Supreme Court of the United States. They may sue each other; 
and, until the Eleventh Amendment was adopted, a citizen might sue a 
State. These ' sovereigns' may all be summoned before their common 
superior to be judged. And yet they are endowed with supreme inherent 
sovereignty! 

"Again, the government of a State may be absolutely abolished by 
Congress, in case it is not republican in form. And, finally, to cap the 
cliiuiix of this absurd pretension, every right possessed by one of these 
'.sovereign' States, every inhei-ent sovereign right, except the single right 
to ecpial representation in the Senale, may be taken away, without its 
con.sent, by the vote of two-thirds of Congress and three-fourths of the 
States. But, in spite of all these disabilities, we hear them paraded as 
independent, sovereign States, the creators of the Union and the dictators 
of its lowers. How inherently 'sovereign' must be that State west of 
the Mississippi which the Nation bought and paid for with the public 
money, and permitted to come into the Union a half century after the 
Constitution was adopted! And yet we are told that the States are in- 
herently sovereign and created the National Government. 

" The dogma of State Sovereignty in alliance with chattel slavery made 



GREAT QUESTIONS AND GEEAT ANSWERS. 319 

its appeal to that court of last resort ^vhere the laws are silent, and where 
kings and nations appear in arms for judgment. In that awful court of 
war two ojuestions were tried: Shall slavery live? And is a State so sov- 
ereign that it may nullify the laws and destroy the Union '? These two 
questions were tried on the thousand battle-fields of the war; and if war 
ever 'legislates,' as a leading Democrat of Ohio once wisely affirmed, 
then our war legislated finally upon those subjects, and determined, be- 
yond all controversy, that slavery should never again live in this Repub- 
lic, and that there is not sovereignty enough in any State to authorize its 
people either to destroy the Union or nullify its laws." 

Ten years ago a biographer who loved Garfield and cared for 
his fame would have omitted the speech from which we are 
about to give extracts. It is, however, no secret that, in 1871, 
General Garfield split with his party upon what was known in 
contemporary politics as "The Force Bill." This bill was 
drawn, under the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment, to 
protect the Republicans of the Southern States from outrage 
and murder. The President had laid before Congress a most 
terrible state of affliirs. The Kn-Klux Klan, that bloody and 
mysferious organization, which was the terror of loyal men, 
and the guilty perpetrator of unnumbered crimes, thrust its 
hideous head into the face of the men who had fought for the 
Union. Murder, ostracism, incendiarism, bull-dozing, intim- 
idation, ballot-box stuffing, and a thousand other outrages 
were committed. The best pipture of the time is in " The 
Fool's Errand." These things, perhaps, (we do not say so) 
magnified by fear, hate, and political rancor, were too much 
for the Republican Congress and the men who had worn the 
blm; under Southern ■ skies. There was terrible bitterness. 
Revenge darkened the !N'orthern heart. The majority in Con- 
gress resolved to clutch the demon's throat w^ith the iron grip 
of law. In a former chapter we spoke of the battle as an ex- 
perience, and how it perpetually reproduced itself in the mind 
of its participants. The illustration of that is found in the 
attitude of President Grant and the soldier majority in Con- 
gress at the time of which we are writing. The "Force Bill" 



320 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

was really a tremendous battery. It was surrounded witli sul- 
phurous smoke, and was as grim as death. 

But to tlic rule General Garfield was an exception. At the 
close of the war, he said, we passed into another political 
opoch. He believed in the Xatioii, but the cahn balance of 
his mind refused assent to any extreme measure. There was 
no wavering on the supremacy of the Nation. But after all 
this was a Republic, and despotism, the one extreme, was as 
fatal as disunion, the other. General Garfield opposed the ex- 
treme parts of the "Force Bill." He looked to the future of 
our country as well as the past. We summarize his elaborate 
speech : 

THE FORCE BILL. 

"Mr. Speaker: I am not able to understand the mental organization 
of the man who can consider this bill, and the subject of which it treats, 
as free from very great difficulties. He must be a man of very mode- 
rate abilities, whose ignorance is bliss, or a man of transcendaut genius 
whom no difficulties can daunt and whose clear vision no cloud obscures. 

" The distinguished gentleman [Mr. Shellabarger] who introduced 
the bill from the committee, very appropriately said that it requires* us to 
enter upon unexplored territory. That territory, Mr. Speaker, is the 
neutral ground of all political philosophy; the neutral ground for which 
rival theories have been struggling in all ages. There are two ideas so 
utterly antagonistic that, when in any nation, either has gained absolute 
and complete possession of that neutral ground, the ruin of that nation 
has invariably followed. The one ife that despotism which swallows and 
absorbs all power in a single-central government; the other is that ex- 
treme doctrine of local sovereignty which makes nationality impossible, 
and resolves a general government into anarchy and chaos. It makes 
but little difference, as to the final result, which of these ideas drives the 
other from the field ; in either case ruin follows. 

"The result exhibited by the one was seen in the Am])hictyonic and 
Acliaian leagues of ancient Greece, of which ]Madis()ii, in the twentieth 
nundjer of the Federalist, says: 

" 'The inevitable result of all was imbecility in the government, dis- 
cord among the provinces, foreign influences and indignities, a precarious 
existence in peace, and peculiar calamities in war.' 



i 



GKEAT QUESTIONS AND GREAT ANSWERS. 321 

"This is a fitting description of all nations which have carried the doc- 
trine of local self-government so far as to exclude the doctrine of nation- 
ality. They were not nations, but mere leagues, bound together by com- 
mon consent, ready to fall to pieces at the demand of any refractory 
member. The opposing idea was never better illustrated than when 
Louis XIV. entered the French Assembly, booted and spurred, and gii-ded 
with the sword of ancestral kings, and said to the Deputies of France : 
' The State ! I am the State ! ' 

" Between these opposite and extreme theories of government, the peo- 
])le have been tossed from century to century ; and it has been only when 
these ideas have been in I'easonable equipoise, when this neutral ground 
has been held in joint occupancy, and usurped by neither, that poj)ular 
liberty and national life have been possible. How many striking illus- 
trations of this do we see in the history of France! The deposition of 
Louis XIV., followed by the Reign of Terror, when liberty had run mad 
and France was a vast scene of blood and ruin ! We see it again in our 
day. Only a few years ago, the theory of personal government had 
j)laced in the hands of Napoleon III., absolute and irresponsible power. 
The communes of France were crushed, and local liberty existed no 
longer. Then followed Sedan and the rest. On the first day of last 
month, when France was trying to rebuild her ruined Government, 
when the Prussian cannon had scarcely ceased thundering against the 
walls of Paris, a deputy of France rose in the National Assembly and 
moved, as the fii'st step toward the safety of his country, that a com- 
mittee of thirty should.be chosen, to be called the Committee of Decen- 
tralization. But it was too late to save France from the fearfal reaction 
from despotism. The news comes to us, under the sea, that on Saturday 
last, the cry was ringing through France: ' Death to the Priests!' and 
' Death to the Rich ! ' and the swords of the citizens of that new repub- 
lic are now wet with each other's blood. 

EQUIPOISE OF OUR GOVERNMENT. 

"The records of time show no nobler or wiser work done by human 
hands than that of our fathers when they framed this Republic. Begin- 
ning in a wilderness world, they WTOught xmfettered by precedent, un- 
trammeled by custom, unawed by kings or dynasties. With the history 
of other nations before them, they surveyed the new field. In the pi'o- 
gress of their work they encountered these antagonistic ideas to which I 
21 



322 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

have referred. They attempted to trace through that neutral ground 
the boundary hne across which neither force should pass. The result 
of their labors is our Constitution and frame of government. I never 
(.•ontemplate the result without feeling that there was more than mor- 
tal wisdom in the men who produced it. It has seemed to me that they 
borrowed their thought from Him who constructed the universe and put 
it in motion. For nothing more aptly describes the character of our 
Republic than the solar system, launched into space by the hand of 
the Creator, where the central sun is the great power around which re- 
volve all the planets in their appointed orbits. But while the sun holds 
in the grasp of its attractive power the whole system, and imparts its 
light and heat to all, yet each individual planet is under the sway of 
laws peculiar to itself. 

"Under the sway of terrestrial laws, winds blow, waters flow, and all 
the tenantries of the planet live and move. So, sir, the States move on 
in their orbits of duty and obedience, bound to the central Government 
by this Constitution, which is their supreme law, while each State is 
making laws and regulations of its own, developing its own energies, 
maintaining its own industries, managing its local affairs in its own way, 
subject only to the supreme but beneficent control of the Union. When 
States Rights ran mad, put on the form of secession, and attempted to 
drag the States out of Union, we saw the grand lessons taught, in all 
the battles of the late war, that a State could no more be hurled from 
the Union, without ruin to the Nation, than could a planet be thrown 
from its orbit without dragging after it, to chaos and ruin, the whole so- 
lar universe. 

" Sir, the great war for the Union has vindicated the centripetal power 
of the Nation, and has exi)loded, forever I trust, the disorganizing theory 
of State Sovereignty, which slavery attempted to impose upon this country. 
But we should never forget that there is danger in the opposite direc- 
tion. The destruction, or serious crippling of the principle of local gov- 
ernment, would be as fatal to liberty as secession would have been fatal 
to the Union. 

"The first experiment Avhich our fathers tried in government-making 
after the War of Independence was a failure, because the central power 
conferred in the Articles of Confederation was not strong enough. The 
second, though nobly conceived, became almost a failure, because slavery 
attemj)ted so to interpret the Constitution as to reduce the nation again 



GKEAT QUESTIONS AND GREAT ANSWERS. 323 

to a confederacy, a mere league between sovereign States. But we have 
now vindicated and secured the centripetal power ; let us see that the 
centrifugal force is not destroyed, but that the grand and beautiful equi- 
poise may be maintained. 

"It will not be denied that before the adoption of the last three amend- 
ments, it was the settled interpretation of the Constitution that the pro- 
tection of the life and property of private citizens belonged to the State 
governments entirely. . . . Now three amendments have been added 
to the Constitution, and it will not be denied that each of these- amend- 
ments has changed the relation of Congress to the citizens of the States." 

Garfield spoke with bis eye on the future: ''This debate will 
become historic as the earliest legislative interpretation of the 
Fourteenth Amendment," he said. He reviewed the debates ac- 
companying the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment. Two 
propositions had been before Congress. The essential parts of the 
one adopted were — 

"The Congress shall have power to enforce by appropriate legislation, 
the following provisions, to wit : 

"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the priv- 
ileges or immunities of citizens of the United States ; nor shall any State 
deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of 
law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection 
of the laws. 

" And this is the rejected clause: 

"The Congress shall have power to make all laws which may be nee- 
essary and proper to secure to the citizens in these several States equal 
protection in the rights of life, liberty, and property. 

" The one exerts its force directly upon the Slates, laying restriction 
and limitations upon their power, and enabling Congress to enforce these 
limitations. The other, the rejected proposition, would have brought 
the power of Congress to bear directly upon the citizens, and contained 
a clear grant of power to Congress to legislate directly for the protection 
of life, liberty, and j^roperty within the States. The first limited, but 
did not oust the jurisdiction of the State over these subjects. The sec- 
ond gave Congress plenary power to cover the whole subject with its ju- 
risdiction, and, as it seems to me, to the exclusion of the State authorities. 



324 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

" Mr. Speaker, unless we ignore both the history and the language of 
these clauses we can not, by any reasonable interpretation, give to the 
section as it stands in the Constitution, the force and effect of the rejected 
clause." 

Then followed an exhaustive discussion of the different clauses 
of the Fourteenth Amendment, after which he passed to the pro- 
visions of the pending bill. Southern outrages had been stated by 
the President to exist. The trouble was not unequal laws, but 
their maladministration and denial of protection under them. 
This demanded legislation. But Congress had no power to assume 
<)Tiginal jurisdiction of the matter. It could only define and de- 
clare the offense, and should employ no terras Avhich asserted the 
power of Congress to take jurisdiction, until such denial of nghts 
was clearly made. Passing then to the extreme and most objection- 
able parts of the bill he said : 

" But, Mr. Speaker, there is one provision in the fourth section which 
appears to me both unwise and unnecessary. It is proposed not only to 
authorize the suspension of the privileges of the writ of habeas corpus, but 
to authorize the declaration of martial law in the disturbed districts. 

"I do not deny, but I affirm, the right of Congress to authorize the 
.suspension of the privileges of the writ of habeas corpus whenever, in cases 
of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it. Such action 
has been, and may again be, necessary to the safety of the Republic; but 
I call the attention of the House to the fact that never but once in the 
history of this Government has Congress suspended the great privileges 
of this writ, and then it was not done until after two years of war had 
closed all the ordinary tribunals of justice in the rebellioiKS districts, and 
the great armies of the Union, extending from Maryland to the Mexican 
line, Avere engaged in a death-struggle with the armies of the rebellion. 
It was not until the third day of March, 1863, that the Congress of the 
United States found the situation so full of peril as to make it their duty 
to suspend this greatest privifege enjoyed by Anglo-Saxon people. Are 
we ready to say that an equal peril confronts us to-day ? 

"My objections to authorizing this suspension implies no di.^trustof tlie 
wisdom or patriotism of the President. I do not believe he woulil employ 
this power were we to confer it upon him ; and if he did employ it, I do 
not doubt he would use it with justice and wisdom. But what we do on 



GKEAT QUESTIONS AND GEEAT ANSAVERS. 325 

this occasion will be quoted as a precedent hereafter, when other men 
with other purposes may desire to confer this power on another President 
for purposes that may not aid in securing public liberty and public peace. 
" But this section provides no safeguard for citizens who may be ar- 
rested during the suspension of the writ. There is no limit to the time 
during which men may be held as prisoners. Nothing in the section re- 
quires them to be delivered over to the courts. Nothing in it gives them 
any other protection than the will of the commander who orders their 
ai'rest." 



" But, sir, this fourth section goes a hundred bow-shots farther than 
any similar legislation of Congress during the wildest day of the rebel- 
lion. It authorizes the declaration of martial Law. We are called upon 
to provide by law for the suspension of all law ! Do gentlemen remem- 
ber what martial law is ? Eefer to the digest of opinions of the Judge 
Advocate-General of the United States, and you will find a terse defini- 
tion which gleams like a flixsh of a sword-blade. The Judge Advocate 
says; 'Martial law is the will of the general who commands the army.' 
And Congress is here asked to declare martial law. Why, sir, it is the 
l)ride and boast of England that martial law has not existed in that 
country since the Petition of Right in tlie thirty-first year of Charles II. 
Three years ago the Lord Chief-Justice of England came down from the 
high court over which he was presiding to review the charge of another 
judge to the grand jury, and he there annouuced that the power to de- 
clare martial law no longer existed in England. In 1867, the same 
judge, in the case of the Queen vs Nelson, uttered this sentence: 

" 'There is no such law in existence as martial law, and no power in 
the Crown to proclaim it.' 

"In a recent treatise, entitled The Nation, a work of great power and 
research, the author, Mr. Mulford, says; 'The declaration of martial 
law, or the suspension of habeas corpus, is the intermission of the ordi- 
nary course of law, and of the tribunals to which an appeal may be made. 
It places the locality included in its operations no longer under the gov- 
ernment of law. It interrupts the process of rights and the procedure 
of courts and restricts the independence of civil administration. There 
is substituted for these the intention of the individual. To this there is* 
in the civil order no formal limitation. In its immediate action it al- 
lows beyond itself no obligation and acknowledges no responsibility. 



32G LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

Its command or its decree is the only law; its movement may be secret, 
and its decisions are opened to the inquiry of no judge and the investi- 
gation of no tribunal. There is no positive power which may act, or be 
called upon to act, to stay its caprice or to check its arbitrary career 
fc'iiice judgirient and execution are in its own e<jmmand, and the normal 
action and administration is suspended and the organized force of the 
whole is subordinate to it.' 

"Sir, this provision means war, or it means nothing; uind I ask this 
House whether we are now ready to take this step? Shall we ' cry havoc 
and let slip the dogs of war?' 

" I have taken a humble part in one war, and I hope I shall always be 
ready to do any duty that the necessities of the country may require of 
nie; but I am not willing to talk Avar or to declare war in advance of 
the terrible necessity. Are there no measures within our reach which 
may aid in preventing war? AVlien a savage war lately threatened our 
Western frontiers we sent our Commissioners of Peace in the hope of 
avoiding war. Have we done all in our power to avoid that which this 
section contemplates? I hope the committee will bring a companion 
measure that looks toward peace and enable us to send the olive branch 
with the sword." 

This speech marked the separation of General Garfield from the 
Stalwart wing of the Republican party. It w^as never forgiven nor 
forgotten. It showed his balance of mind, his avoidance of ex- 
tremes. The time when he delivered it was one of extremes. It 
was an epoch of reaction. It was verging toward the period when 
Sumner and Adams and Greeley were to forsake the party they 
had helped to create. It was a time when the fierce passions of 
war were beginning to find an opponent in the struggling instinct 
of reunion and peace. It was a time when the great radicals, who 
had fought slavery to its death, were to swing to the other extreme 
of loving gush and apologetic forgiveness toward a South which 
sat crouching in the Temple of Liberty, still maddened w^ith the 
wild insanity of w^ar. It was a time, on the other hand, when the 
great war leaders, gorged with the bloody spoils of victory, were to 
•know no forgiveness, no forgetful ness, but to plant the iron heel of 
despotism uj)on the prostrate and bleeding foe. In this time of ex- 
tremes General Garfield took the middle course. He remained a 



GREAT QUESTIONS AND GREAT ANSWERS. 327 

true Republican, but he recoiled from brutalism toward the South. 
Now that the passions of the hour have passed away, we believe 
that his speech on the enforcement of the Fourteenth Amendment 
will stand as the wisest utterance of the times. It rises above the 
level of partisanship to that of statesmanship. In the midst of the 
tempest of po})ular excitement over Southern outrages he was calm. 
As he afterwards said in his nominating speech at Chicago : 

"It is not the billows, but the calm level of the sea from which all 
heights and depths are measured. When the storm has passed and the 
hour of cairn settles on the ocean, when sunlight bathes its smooth sur- 
face, then the astronomer and surveyor takes the level from which he 
measures all terrestrial heights and depths." 

This was the secret of all of Garfield's views. In spite of 
political fears and dogmas, in spite of partisan doubts and dis- 
may, he was right. Therefore, in his answers to the great 
questions affecting the nationality of the United States, Jamen 
A. Garfield is entitled to the historic rank of statesman. 

We will next inquire to what rank Garfield's utterances on 
questions affecting the Financial and Monetary systems of the 
United States belong. It has been noticed that this and the 
succeeding topic formed General Garfield's specialty. In the 
epoch in which he lived they were the paramount themes of 
l)olitlcs. He himself called the financial question the modern 
political Sphinx. For the last eight years, inflation, hard money, 
greenbacks, etc., had been discussed from every point of 
tiie compass, in every key and to every tune. Men thought 
it was a new thing. Years before the public clamor, General 
Garfield took his position on the financial question. He fore- 
saw and foretold the experience of the country before the pub- 
lic mind liad rolled its heavy eyes toward the subject. It 
has been claimed that on the financial question Garfield was 
ten years ahead of his generation ; that he was a pioneer and 
leader in every sense in the advance toward the resumption- 
of S})ecie payments and a stable currency. Not in 1874, when 
the first great inflation bill ran its rapid career, nor in 1876, 



328 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

nor 1878, when the advocates of paper money had organized 
themselves into a political party, did he come forward with 
arguments on the currency for the first time. It was iu 18GG 
that he turned the first furrow in Congress. On March IGth 
of that year, he enunciated, in a short hut vigorous speech, 
the basal principles of finance, which in later efibrts he was 
to elaborate and fortify with every argument or authority 
which could appeal to the human understanding. From that 
first position Garfield never receded. ISTot for a moment did 
he cease to regard irredeemable and inflated paper currency 
an unmixed evil, and resumption as the main end of the legis- 
lation of the epoch. His speeches on finance cover the en- 
tire field, and are very numerous. From two or three we pre- 
sent copious extracts. On May 15, 1868, he delivered a speech 
which was, and is, a complete manual of the principles of 
sound financial policy : 

"I am aware that financial sulyects are dull and uninviting in com- 
parison with those lieroic themes which have absorbed the attention of 
Congress for the last five years. To turn from the consideration of 
armies and navies, victories and defeats, to the array of figures which 
exhibits the debt, expenditure, taxation, and industry of the nation, re- 
ijuires no little courage and self-denial ; but to these questions we must 
come, and to their solution Ct)ngress, political parties, and all tlioughtful 
citizens must give their best efforts for many years to come. 

"In April, 1861, there began in this country an industrial revolution, 
not yet completed, as gigantic in its proportions, and as far-reaching in 
its consequences, as the political and military revolution through which 
we have passed. As the first step to any intelligent discussion of tlie 
currency, it is necessary to examine the character and progress of that 
industrial revolution. 

" The year 1860 was one of remarkable prosperity in all branches of 
business. For seventy years no Federal tax-gatherer had ever been seen 
among the laboring population of the United States. Our pu])Iic debt 
Avas less than sixty-five million dollars. The animal expenditures of the 
Government, including interest on the public debt, were le-ss than sixty- 
four million dollars. The revenues from customs alone amounted to six- 
sevenths of the expenditures. The value of our agricultural products for 



GREAT QUESTIONS AND GREAT ANSWERS. 329 

tluit year amounted to 81,625,000,000. Our cotton crop alone was two 
billion one hundred and fifty-five million pounds, and we supplied to the 
markets of the svorld seven-eighths of all the cotton consumed. Our 
merchant murine engaged in foreign trade amounted to two million five 
hundred ami forty-six thousand two hundred and thirty-seven tons, and 
promised soon to rival the immense carrying trade of England. 

"Let us now observe the effect of the war on the various dejiartments 
of business. From the moment the first hostile gun was fired, the Fed- 
eral and State governments became gigantic consumers. As far as pro- 
duction was concerned, eleven States were completely separated from the 
Union. Two million laborers, more than one-third of the adult popula- 
tion of the Northern States, were withdrawn from the ranks of producers, 
and became only consumers of wealth. The Federal Government be- 
came an insatiable devourer. Leaving out of account the vast sums ex- 
pended by States, counties, cities, towns, and individuals, for the payment 
of bounties, for the relief of sick and wounded soldiers and their families, 
and omitting the losses, which can never be estimated, of property de- 
stroyed by hostile armies, I shall speak only of expenditures which appear 
on the books of the Federal Treasury. From the 30th of June, 1861, to 
the 30th of June, 1865, there were paid out of the Federal Treasury 
83,340,996.211, making an aggregate during these four years of more 
than 8836,000,000 per annum. 

" From the official records of the Treasury Department it appears that, 
from the beginning of the American Revolution in 1775 to the begin- 
ning of the late rebellion, the total expenditures of the Government for 
all purposes, including the assumed war debts of the States, amounted to 
$2,250,000,000. The expenditure of four years of the rebellion were 
nearly 81,100,000,000 more than all the other Federal expenses since the 
Declaration of Independence. The debt of England, which had its origin 
in the revolution of 1688, and was increased by more than one hundred 
years of war and other political disasters, had reached in 1793 the sum 
of 81.268,000,000. During the twenty-two years that followed, while 
England w^as engaged in a life and death struggle with Napoleon (the 
greatest war in history save our own), 83,056,000,000 were added to her 
debt. In our four years of war we spent $300,000,000 more than the 
amount by which England increased her debt in twenty-two years of 
war; almost as much as she had increased it in one hundred and twenty- 
five years of war. Now, the enormous demand which this expemlituro 



330 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

created for all the products of industry stimulated to au unparalleled 
degree every department of business. The plow, furnace, mill, loom, 
railroad, steamboat, telegraph — all were driven to tlieir utmost capacity. 
Warehouses were emptied; and the great reserves of supply, which all 
nations in a normal state keep on hand, were exhausted to meet the de- 
mands of the great consumer. For many months the Government swal- 
lowed three millions per day of the products of industry. Under the 
j)ressure of this demand, prices rose rapidly in every department of busi- 
ness. Labor every-where found quick and abundant returns. Old debts 
were canceled, and great fortunes were made. 

"For the transaction of this enormous business an increased amount 
of currency was needed ; but I doubt if any member of this House can 
be found bold enough to deny that the deluge of Treasury notes poured 
upon the country during the war was far greater even than the great de- 
mands of business. Let it not be forgotten, however, that the chief ob- 
ject of these issues was not to increase the currency of the country. 
They were authorized with great reluctance, and under the pressure of 
overwhelming necessity, as a temporary expedient to meet the demands 
of the Treasury. They were really forced loans in the form of Treasury 
notes. By the act of July 17, 1861, an issue of demand notes was au- 
thorized to the amount of $50,000,000. By the act of August 5, 1861, 
this amount was increased §50,000,000 more. By the act of February 
25, 1862, an additional issue of §150,000,000 was authorized. On the 
17th of the same month, an unlimited issue of fractional currency was 
authorized. On the 17th of January, 1873, an issue of §150,000,000 
more was authorized, which was increased §50,000,000 by the act of 
March 3d of the same year. This act also authorized the issue of one 
and two years' Treasury notes, bearing interest at five ])cr cent., to be a 
legal tender for their face, to the amount of §400,000,000. By the act 
of June 30, 1864, an issue of six per cent, compound-interest notes, to 
be a legal tender for their face, Avas authorized, to the amount of 
§200,000,000. In addition to this, many other forms of paper obligation 
were authorized, which, though not a legal tender, performed many of 
the functions of currency. By the act of March 1, 1802, the issue of an 
unlimited amount of certificates of indebtedness was authorized, and 
"svithin ninety days after the passage of the act there had lieen issued nnd 
were outstanding of these certificates more than §156,000,000. Of 
course these issues were not all outstnnding at the same time, but the 
acts show how great was the necessity for loans during the war. 



GEEAT QUESTIONS AND GEEAT ANSWEES. 331 

"The law which made the vast vohuue of United States notes a legal 
tender operated as an act of general bankruptcy. The man who loaned 
81,000 in July, 1861, payable in three years, was compelled by this law 
to accept at maturity, as a full discharge of the debt, an amount of cur- 
rency equal in value to $350 of the money he loaned. Private indebted- 
ness was every-where canceled. Rising prices increased the profits of 
business, but this prosperity was caused by the great demand for products, 
and not by the abundance of paper money. As a means of transacting 
the vast business of the country, a great volume of currency was indis- 
pensable, and its importance can not well be overestimated. But let us 
not be led into the fatal error of supposing that paper money created the 
business or produced the wealth. As well might it be alleged that our 
rivers and canals produce the grain which they float to market. Like 
currency, the channels of commerce stimulate 2:)roduction, but can not 
nullify the inexorable law of demand and supply. 

" iMr. Chairman, I have endeavored to trace the progress of our in- 
dustrial revolution in passing from peace to war. In returning from war 
to peace all the conditions were reversed. At once the Government 
ceased to be an all-devouring consumer. Nearly two million able-bodied 
men were discharged from the army and navy and enrolled in the ranks 
of the producers. The expenditures of the Government, which, for the 
fiscal year ending June 30, 1865, amounted to ^1,290,000,000, were re- 
duced to 8520,000,000 in 1866; to $346,000,000 in 1867; and, if the 
retrenchment measures recommended hj the Special Commissioner of the 
Revenue be adopted, another year will bring them below 8300,01)0,000. 

"Thus during the first year after the war the demands of the Federal 
Government as a consumer decreased sixty per cent. ; and in the second 
year the decrease had reached seventy-four per cent., with a fair pros- 
pect of a still further reduction. 

" The recoil of this sudden change would have produced great financial 
disaster in 1866, but for the fact that there was still open to industry the 
work of replacing the Avasted reserves of supply, which, in all countries 
in a healthy state of business, are estimated to be sufficient for two years. 
During 1866, the fall in price of all articles of industry amounted to an 
average of ten per cent. One year ago a table was prepared, at my re- 
quest, by Mr. Edward Young, in the office of the Special Commissitaier 
of the Revenue, exhibiting a comparison of wholesale prices at New York 
in December, 1865, and December, 1866. It shows that in ten leading 
articles of provisions there was an average decline of twenty-two per 



332 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

cent., tliougli beef, flour, and other breadstufis remained nearly station- 
ary. Oil cotton and woolen goods, boots, shoes, and clothing, tiie decline 
was thirty per cent. On the products of manufacture and mining, in- 
cluding coal, cordage, iron, lumber, mxval stores, oils, tallow, tin, and 
wool, the decline was twenty-five per cent. The average decline on all 
commodities was at least ten per cent. According to the estimates of 
the S{->ecial. Commissioner of the Revenue in his last report, the average 
decline during 1867 hiis amounted at least to ten per cent, juore. During 
the past two years Congress has provided by law for reducing internal 
taxation $100,000,000 ; and the act passed a few weeks ago has reduced 
the tax on manufactures to the amount of $64,000,000 per annum. The 
repeal of the cotton tax will make a further reduction of $20,000,000. 
State and municipal taxation and expenditures have also been greatly re- 
duced. The work of replacing these reserves delayed the shock and dis- 
tribated its effects, but could not avert the inevitable result. During the 
past two years, one by one, the various departments of industry produced 
a supply equal to the demand. Then followed a glutted market, a fall 
in prices, and a stagnation of business, by which thousands of laborers 
were thrown out of employment. 

"If to this it be added that the famine in Europe and the drought in 
many of the agricultural States of the Union have kept the price of pro- 
visions from falling, as other commodities have fallen, wc shall have a 
sufficient explanation of the stagnation of business, and the unusual dis- 
tress among our people. 

"This industrial revolution has been governed by laws beyond the 
reach of Congress. No legishition could have arrested it at any stage of 
its progress.' The most that could possibly be done by Congress was, to 
take advantage of the prosperity it occasioned to raise a revenue for the 
support of the Government, and to mitigate the severity of its subsequent 
pressure, by reducing the vast machinery of war to the lowest scale pos- 
sible. Manifestly nothing can be more absurd than to 'suppose that the 
abundance of currency produced by the prosperity of 18(53. 1804, and 
186.5, or that the want of it is the cause of our present stagnation. 

"In order to reach a satisfactory understanding of the currency ques- 
tion, it is necessary to consider somewhat full}' the natuie and func- 
tions of money or any substitute for it. 

" The theory of money which formed the basis of the ' mercantile sys- 
tem' of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries has been rejected by 



GEEAT QUESTIONS AND GREAT ANSWERS. 333 

all leading financiers and political economists for the last seventy-five 
years. That theory asserted that money is -wealth ; that the great object 
of every nation should be to increase its amount of gold and silver ; that 
this was a direct increase of national wealth. 

" It is now held as an indisputable truth that money is an instrument 
of tnide, ami performs but two functions. It is a measure of value and 
a medium of exchange. 

"In cases of simple barter, where no money is used, we estimate *the 
rehitive values of the commodities to be exchanged in dollars and cents, it 
being our only universal measure of value. 

"As a medium of exchange, money is to all business transactions what 
ships are to the transportation of merchandise. If a hundred vessels of 
a given tonnage are just sufficient to carry all the commodities between 
two ports, au)' increase of the number of vessels Avill correspondingly de- 
crease the value of each as an instrument of commerce; any decrease 
below one hundred will correspondingly increase the value of each. 

"The functions of money as a medium of exchange, though more com- 
plicated in their application, are precisely the same in principle as the 
iuuctions of the vessels in the case I have supposed. 

"If we could ascertain the total value of all the exchanges effected in 
this country by means of money iu any year, and could ascertain how 
many dollars' w-orth of such exchanges can be effected in a year by one 
dollar in money, we sliould know how much money the country needed 
for the business transactions of that year. Any decrease behjw that 
amount will correspondingly increase the value of each dollar a-s an in- 
strument of exchange. Any increase above that amount will correspond- 
ingly decrease the value of each dollar. If that amount be doubled, each 
dollar of the whole mass will perform but half the amount of business it 
did before; will be worth but half its former value as a medium of ex- 
change. 

"Recurring to our illustration: if, instead of sailing vessels, steam 
vessels were substituted, a much smaller tonnage would be required; so, 
if it were found that $500,000,000 of paper, each worth seventy cents 
in gold, were sufficient for the business of the country, it is equally evi- 
dent that S350,000,000 of gold substituted for the paper would perform 
precisely the same amount of business. 

" It should be remembered, also, that any improvement in the m<ide 
of transacting business, by which the actual use of money is in part dis 



334 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFJELD. 

pensed with, reduces the total amount needed by the country. How 
much has been accomplished in this direction by recent improvements in 
banking; may be seen in the operations of the clearing-houses in our 
great cities. 

" The records of the New York Clearing House show that from Oc- 
tober 11, 1853, the date of its establishment, to October 11, 1867, the ex- 
chanii-es amounted to. nearly $180,000,000,000; to effect which, less than 
$8,000,000,000 of money were used, an average of about four per cent. ; 
that is, exchanges were made to the amount of $100,000,000 by the pay- 
ment of $4,000,000 of money. 

*' It is also a settled principle that all deposits in banks, drawn upon 
by checks and drafls, really serve the purpose of money. 

"The amount of currency needed in the country depends, as we have 
seen, upon the amount of business transacted by means of money. The 
amount of business, however, is varied by many causes which are irregu- 
lar and uncertain in their ojjeration. An Indian war, deficient or 
abundant harvests, an overflow of the cotton lands of the South, a bread 
famine or war in Europe, and a score of such causes entirely beyond 
the reach of legislation, may make money deficient this year and abun- 
dant next. The needed amount varies also from month to month in the 
same year. More money is required in the autumn, when the vast 
products of agriculture are being moved to market, than when the great 
army of laborers are in winter-quarters, awaiting the seed-time. 

" When the money of the country is gold and silver, it adapts itself 
to the fluctuations of business without the aid of legislation. If, at any 
time, we have more than is needed, the surplus flows off" to other coun- 
tries through the channels of international commerce. If less, the defi- 
ciency is supplied through the same channels. Thus the monetary 
equilibrium is maintained. So iwimense is the trade of the world that 
the golden streams pouring from California and Australia in the specie 
circulation, are soon absorbed in the great mass and equalized throughout 
the world, as the waters of all the rivers are spread upon the surface of 
all the seas. 

" Not so, however, with an inconvertible paper currency. Excepting 
the specie used in the paym,entof customs and the interest on our public 
debt, we are cut oflffrom the money currents of the world. Our currency 
resembles rather. the waters of an artificial lake, which lie in stagnation 
or rise to full banks at the caprice of the gate-keeper. 



GREAT QUESTIONS AND GREAT ANSWERS. 335 

"Gold and silver abhor depreciated paper money, and will not keep 
company '^vith it. If our currency be more abundant than business 
demands, not a dollar of it can go abroad ; if deficient, not a dollar of 
gold Avill come in to supply the lack. There is no legislature on earth 
-wise enough to adjust such a currency to the wants of the country. 

" Let us examine more minutely the efiect of such a currency upon 
prices. Suppose that the business transactions of the country at the 
present time require $350,000,000 in gold. It is manifest that if there 
are just 8350,000,000 of legal-tender notes, and no other money in the 
country, each dollar will perform the full functions of a gold dollar, so 
far as the work of exchange is concerned. Now, business remaining the 
same, let 8850,000,000 more of the same kind of notes be pressed into 
circulation. The whole volume, as thus increased, can do no more than 
all the business. Each dollar will accomplish just half the work that a 
dollar did before the increase ; but as the nominal dollar is fixed by law, 
the effect is shown in prices being doubled. It requires two of these 
dollars to make the same purchase that one dollar made before the 
increase. It would require some time for the business of the country to 
adjust itself to the new conditions, and great derangement of values 
would ensue ; but the result would at last be reached in all transactions 
which are controlled by the law of demand and supply. 

"No such change of values can occur without cost. Somebody must 
pay for it. Who pays in this case? We have seen that doubling the 
currency finally results in reducing the purchasing power of each dollar 
one-half; hence every man who held a legal-tender note at the time of 
the increase, and continued to hold it till the full effect of the increase 
was produced, suffered a loss of fifty ])er cent, of its value; in other 
words, he paid a tax to the amount of half of all the currency in his 
possession. This new issue, therefore, by depreciating the value of aU 
the currency, cost the holders of the old issue SI 75,000,000 ; and if the 
new notes were received at their nominal value at the date of issue, their 
holders paid a tax of $175,000,000 more. No more unequal or unjust 
mode of taxation could possibly be devised. It Avould be tolerated only 
by being so involved in the transactions of business as to be concealed 
from observation ; but it would be no less real because hidden. 

" But some one may say: 'This depreciation would fall upon capital- 
ists and rich men, who are able to bear it.' 

" If this were true, it would be no less unjust. But, unfortunately. 



336 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

the capitalists would sutler less than any other class. The new issue 
wouhi be paid in the first place in large amounts to the crcvlitors of the 
Government ; it would pass from their hands before the depreciation 
hud taken full effect, and, passing down step by step through the ranks 
of middle-men, the dead weight would fall at last upon the laboring 
classes in the increased price of all the necessaries of life. It is well 
known that in a general rise of prices, wages are among the last to rise. 
This principle was illustrated in the lejwrt of the Special Commissioner 
of the Revenue for the year 1866. It is there shown that from the 
beginning of the war to the end of 1866, the average price of all commo- 
dities had risen ninety per cent. Wages, however, had risen but sixty 
per cent. A day's labor would purchase but two-thirds as many of the 
necessaries of life as it would before. The wrong is, therefore, inflicted 
on the laborer long before his income can be adjusted to his increased 
expenses. It was, in view of this truth, that Daniel AVebster said, in 
one of his ablest speeches : 

" ' Of all the contrivances for cheating the laboring classes of man- 
kind, none has been more effectual than that which deludes them with 
paper money. This is the most effectual of inventions to fertilize the 
rich man's field by the sweat of the poor man's brow. Ordinary tyranny, 
oppression, excessive taxation, these bear lightly on the happiness of the 
mass of the community, compared with a fraudulent currency and the 
robberies committed by depreciated paper.' 

"The fraud committed and the burdens imposed upon the people, in 
the case we have supposed, would be less intolerable if all business 
transactions could be really adjusted to the new conditions ; but even 
this is impossible. All debts would be canceled, all contracts fulfilled by 
payment in these notes — not at their real value, but for their face. All 
salaries fixed by law, the pay of every soldier in the army, of every 
sailor in the navy, and all pensions and bounties, would be reduced to 
half their former value. In these cases the effect is only injurious. Let 
it never be forgotten that every depreciation of our currency results in 
robbing the one hundred and eighty thousand pensioners, maimed heroes, 
crushed and bereaved widows, and homeless orphans, who sit helpless at 
our feet. And who would be benefited by this policy? A pretense of 
apology might be offered for it, if the Government could save what the 
people lose. But the system lacks the support of even that selfish and 
immoral consideration. The depreciation caused by the over-issue in the 



GEEAT QUESTIONS AND GREAT ANSWERS. 337 

case we have supposed, compels the Government to pay just that per 
cent, more on all the contracts it makes, on all the loans it negotiates, 
on all the supplies it purchases; and to crown all, it must at last redeem 
all its legal-tender notes in gold coin, dollar for dollar. The advocates 
of repudiation have not yet been bold enough to deny this. 

"I liave thus far considered the influence of a redundant paper cur- 
rency on the country when its trade and industry are in a healthy and 
normal state. I now call attention to its effect in producing an unhealtliy 
expansion of business, in stimulating speculation and extravagance, and 
in laying the sure foundation of commercial revulsion and wide-spread 
ruin. This principle is too well understood to require any elaboration 
here. The history of all modern nations is full of examples. One of 
the ablest American Avritei's on banks and banking, Mr. Gouge, thus 
suras up the result of his researches : 

" ' The history of all our bank pressures and panics has been the same 
in 1825, in 1837, and in 1843 ; and the cause is given in these two 
simple words — universal expansion.' 

"There still remains to be considered the effect of depreciated cur- 
rency on" our trade with other nations. By raising prices at home higher 
than they are abroad, imports are largely increased beyond the exports; 
our coin must go abroad ; or, what is far worse for us, our bonds, which 
have also suffered depreciation, and are purchased by foreigners at 
seventy cents on the dollar. During the whole period of high prices 
occasioned by the war, gold and bonds have been steadily going abroad, 
notwithstanding our tariff" duties, wliich average nearly fifty per cent. 
ad valorem. More than five hundred million dollars of our bonds are 
now held in Europe, ready to be thrown back upon us when any war or 
other sufficient disturbance shall occur. No tariflf rates short of actual 
prohibition can prevent this outflow of gold while our currency is thus 
depreciated. During these years, also, our merchant marine steadily 
decreased, and our ship-building interests were nearly ruined. 

"Our tonnage engaged in foreign trade, which amounted in 1859-'60 
to more than two and a-half million tons, had fallen in 1865-'66 to less 
than one and a-half millions — a deci-ease of more than fifty per cent. ; 
and prices of labor and material are still too high to enable our ship- 
wrights to compete with foreign builders. 

" From the facts already exhibited in reference to our industrial revo- 
lution, and from the fijregoing analysis of the nature and functions of 

currency, it is manifest: 
22 



338 



LIFE OF JA:MES A. GARFIELD. 



"1. That the remarkable prosperity of all industrial enterprises during 
the war was not caused by the abundance of currency, but by the unpar- 
alleled demand for every product of labor. 

"2. That the great depression of business, the stagnation of trade, the 
'hard times' which have prevailed during the past year, and which still 
prevail, have not been caused by an insufficient amount of currency, but 
mainly by the great falling off of the demand for all the products of labor, 
compared with the increased su])ply since the return from war to peace. 

"I subjoin a table, carefully made up from the official records, showing 
the amount of paper money in the United States at the beginning of each 
year from 1834 to 1868 inclusive. The fractions of millions are omitted : 



1834 $ 95,000,000 

1835 104,000,000 

1836 140,000,000 

1837 149,000,000 

1S38 116,000,000 

1839 135,000,000 

1840 107,000,000 

1841 107,000,000 

1842 84,000,000 

1843 59,000,000 

1844 75,000,000 

1845 90,000,000 

1846 105,000,000 

1847 106,000,000 

1848 129,000,000 

1849 115,000,000 

1850 131,000,000 

1851 155,000,000 



1852 $150,000,000 

1853 146,000,000 

1854 205,000,000 

1855 187,000,000 

1856 190,000,000 

1857 215,000,000 

1858 135,000,000 

1859 193,000,000 

1860 207,000,000 

1861 202,00(),()()() 

1862 218,000,000 

1863 529,000,000 

1864 636,000,000 

1805 948,000,000 

1866 919,000,000 

1867 852,000,000 

1868 767,000,000 



''The table I have submitted shows how perfect an index the currency 
is of the healthy or unhealthy condition of business, and that every 
great financial crisis, during the period covered by the table, has been 
preceded by a great increase, and followed by a great and sudden 
decrease, in the volume of paper money. The rise and fall of mercxiry in 
the barometer is not more surely indicative of an atmospheric storvi, than is 
a sudden increase or decrease of currency indicative of financial disaster. 
AVithin the period covered by the table, there were four great financial and 
commercial crises in this country. They occurred in 1837, 1841, 1854, and 
1857. Observe the volume of paper currency for those years : On the first 
day of January, 1837, the amount had risen to $149,000,000, an increase 
of nearly fifty per cent, in three years. Before the end of that year, the 
expansion, speculation, and over-trading which caused the 



GREAT QUESTIONS AND GREAT ANSWERS. 389 

increase, had resulted in terrible collapse ; and on the first of January, 
1838, the volume was reduced to $116,000,000. AV«ild lands, which 
speculation had raised to fifteen and tAventy dollars per acre, fell to one 
dollar and a-half and two dollars, accompanied by a corresponding de- 
pression in all branches of business. Immediately after the crisis of 
1841, the bank circulation decreased twenty-five per cent., and by the 
end of 1842 was reduced to 158,500,000, a decrease of nearly fifty per 
cent. 

"At the beginning of 1853 the amount was $146,000,000. Specula- 
tion and expansion had swelled it to ^205,000,000 by the end of that 
year, and thus introduced the crash of 1854. At the beginning of 1857 
the paper money of the country reached its highest point of inflation up 
to that time. There were nearly $215,000,000, but at the end of that 
disastrous year the volume had fallen to $135,000,000, a decrease of 
nearly forty per cent, in less than twelve months. In the great ci-ashes 
preceding 1837 the same conditions are invariably seen— great expansion, 
followed by a violent collapse, not only in paper money, but in loans and 
discounts ; and those manifestations have always been accompanied by a 
corresponding fluctuation in prices. 

"In the great crash of 1819, one of the severest this country ever 
suffered, there was a complete prostration of business. It is recorded in 
Niles's EegiMer for 1820 that, in that year, an Ohio miller sold four bar- 
rels of flour to raise five dollars, the amount of his subscription to that 
paper. Wheat was twenty cents per bushel, and corn ten cents. About 
the same time Mr. Jefferson wrote to Nathaniel Macon : 

"'We have now no standard of value. I am asked eighteen dollars for a yard 
of broadcloth which, when we had dollars, I used to get for eighteen shillings.' 

" But there is one quality of such a currency more remarkable than all 
others— its strange power to delude men. The spells and enchantments 
of legendary witchcraft were hardly so wonderful. Most delusions can 
not be repeated ; they lose their power after a full exposure. Not so with 
irredeemable paper money. From the days of John Law its history has 
l)een a repetition of the same story, with only this difference: No nation 
now resorts to its use except from overwhelming necessity ; but Avhenever 
any nation is fairly embarked, it floats on the delusive waves, and, like 
the lotus-eating companions of Ulysses, wishes to return no more. 

" Into this very delusion many of our fellow-citizens and many mem- 
bers of this House have fallen. 



340 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAKFIELD. 

" The chief cause of this new-born zeal for paper money is the same 
as that which led, a member of the Continental Congress to exclaim : 

'" Do you tjiink, gentlemen, that I will consent to load my constituents with 
taxes, when we can send to the printer and get a wagon-load of money, one quire 
of which will pay for the whole?' 

"It is my clear conviction that the most formidable danger with which 
the country is now threatened is a large increase in the volume of paper 
money. 

"Shall we learn nothing from experience? Shall the warnings of the 
past be unheeded?" 

Here followed a brilliant historical review of the experience of 
the Colonies, of the Continental Congress, and of England, with 
paper money 

" From these considerations it appears to me that the first step toward 
a settlement of our financial and industrial affairs should be to adopt and 
declare to the country a fixed and definite policy, so that industry end 
enterprise may be based upon confidence ; so that men may know what 
to expect from the Government; and, above all, that the course of busi- 
ness may be so adjusted that it shall be governed by the laws of trade, 
and not by the caprice of any man or of any political party in or out 
of Congress. . . . 

" On the 10th of February, I introduced a bill Avhich, if it should be- 
come a law, will, I believe, go far toward restoring confidence and giving 
stability to business, and will lay the foundation on which a general finan- 
cial policy may be based, whenever opinions are so harmonized as to make 
a general policy possible. 

"As the bill is short, I will quote it entire, and call attention for a 
few moments to its provisions: 

"'a bill to provide for a gradual return to specie payments. 

" ' Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of 
America in Congress assembled: That on and after the first day of December, 1868, 
the Secretary of the Treasury be, and he is hereby, authorized and directed to pay 
■gold coin of the United States for any legal-tender notes of the United States, 
which may be presented at the office of the Assistant Treasurer, at New York, at 
tiie rate of one dollar in gold for one dollar and thirty cents in legal-tender notes. 
On and after the first day of January, 1869, the rate shall be one dollar in gold for 
one dollar and twenty-nine cents in legal-tender notes ; and at the beginning of and 



GREAT QUESTIONS AND GREAT ANSWERS. 341 

during each succeeding month, the amount of legal-tender notes required in ex- 
change for one dollar in gold shall be one cent less than the amount required dur- 
ing the preceding month, until the exchange becomes one dollar in gold for one 
dollar in legal-tender notes; and on and after the first day of June, 1871, the Sees 
retary of the Treasury shall exchange gold for legal-tender notes, dollar for dollar. 
Provided: That nothing in this act shall be so construed as to authorize the retire- 
ment or cancellation of any legal-tender notes of the United States.' 



"I do not doubt that, in anticipation of the operation of this measiu-e, 
should it become a law, gold would be at 130, or lower, by the 1st of 
December, and that very little would be asked for from the Treasury, 
in exchange for currency. At the beginning of each succeeding month 
the exchange between gold and greenbacks would be reduced one cent, 
and specie payments would be fully resumed in June, 1871. That the 
country is fully able to resume by that time will haixUy be denied. 

" With the 1100,000,000 of gold now in the Treasury, and the amount 
received from customs, which averages nearly half a million per day, it 
is not at all probable that we should need to borrow a dollar in order to 
carry out the provisions of the law. 

"But taking the most unfavorable aspect of the case, and supposing 
that the Government should find it necessary to authorize a gold loan, 
the expense would be trifling compared with the resulting benefits to the 
country. The proposed measure would incidentally bring all the national 
banks to the aid of the Government in the work of resumption. The 
banks are lequired by law to redeem their own notes in greenbacks. 
They now hold in their vaults, as a reserve required by law, $162,000,000, 
of which sum $114,000,000 are greenbacks. Being compelled to pay 
the same price for their own notes as for greenbacks, they would grad- 
ually accumulate a specie reserve, and would be compelled to keep 
abreast with the Government in every step of the progress toward re- 
sumption. The necessity of redeeming their own notes would keep their 
circulation nearer home, and would more equally distribute the currency 
of the country which now concentrates at the great money centers, and 
produces scarcity in the rural districts. 

"This measure would not at once restore the old national standaid of 
value, but it would give stability to business and confidence to business 
men every-where. Every man who contracts a debt would know what 
the value of a dollar would be when the debt became due. Tlie opporiu- 
nity now aftbrded to Wall Street gamblers to run up and run do\\ n the re- 



.342 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

lative price of gold aud greenbacks would be removed. The element of 
chance, which now vitiates our whole industrial system, would, in great 
jwrt, be eliminated. 

"If this measure be adopted it will incidentally settle several of our 
most troublesome questions. It will end the war between the contrac- 
tionists and the inflationists — a war which, like that of Marius and Sylla, 
may almost prove fatal to the interests of the country, whichever side 
may prevail. The amount of paper money will regulate itself, and may 
be unlimited, so long as every dollar is convertible into specie at the will 
of the holder. 

" The still more difficult question of paying our five-twenty bonds 
Avould be avoided — completely flanked by this measure. The money 
paid to the wounded soldier, and to the soldier's widow, would soon be 
made equnl in value to the money paid to all other creditors of the Gov- 
ernment. 

"It will bo observed that the bill does not authorize the cancellation 
or retirement of any United States nc)tes. It is believed that, for a time 
at least, the volume of the currency may safely remain as it now is. 
When the •measure has been in force for some time, it Avill be seen 
Avhether the increased use of specie for purposes of circulation will not 
allow a gradual reduction of the legal-tender notes. This can be safely 
left to subsequent legislation. It will facilitate the success of this plan 
if Congress will })ass a bill to legalize contracts hereafter made for the 
payment of coin. If this be done, many business men will conduct their 
affairs on a specie basis, and thus retain at home much of our gold that 
now goes abroad. 

ENGLISH PRECEDENT. 

"I have not been ambitious to add another to the many financial 
plans proposed to this Congress, much less have I sought to introduce a 
new and untried scheme. On the contrary, I regard it a strong com- 
mendation of this measure, that it is substantially the same as that by 
which Great Britain resumed specie payments, after a suspension of 
nearly a quarter of a century. 

"The situation of England at that time was strikingly similar to our 
present situation. She had just emerged from a great war in which her 
resources had been taxed to the utmost. Business had been expanded, 
and high prices prevailed. Paper money had been issued in unusual 
volume, was virtually a legal-tender, and had depreciated to the extent 



GREAT QUESTIONS AND GREAT ANS\VERS. 343 

of twenty-five per cent. Every financial evil from which we now suffer 
prevailed there, and was aggravated by having been longer in operation. 
Plans and theories without end were proposed to meet the many difH- 
culties of the case. For ten years the Bank of England and the major- 
ity in Parliament vehemently denied that paper money had depreciated, 
notwithstanding the unanswerable report of the Bullion Committee of 
1810, and the undeniable fact that it took twenty-five per cent, more of 
notes than of coiji to buy an ounce of gold. 

"Many insisted that paper was a better standard of value than coin. 
Some denounced the attempt to return to specie as unwise, others as im- 
possible. William Cobbett, the famous pamphleteer, announced that he 
would give himself up to be broiled on a gridiron whenever the bank 
should resume cash payments ; and for many years kept the picture of 
a gritliron at the head of his Political Register, to remind his readers of his 
prophecy. Every phase of the question was discussed by the best minds 
of the kingdom, in and out of Parliament, for more than ten years; and 
in May, 1819, under the lead of Robert Peel, a law was j^assed fixing the 
time and mode of resumption. 

"It provided that on the 1st of February, 1820, the bank should give, 
in exchange for its notes, gold bullion in quantities not less than sixty 
ounces, at the rate of 81s. per ounce ; that, from the 1st of October, 
1820, the rates should be 79s. 6d.; from the 1st of May, 1822, 79s. lO^d.; 
and on the 1st of May, 1823, the bank should redeem all its notes in 
coin, whatever the amount presented. The passage of the act gave once 
more a fixed and certain value to money ; and business so soon adjusted 
itself to the measure in anticipation, that specie payments were fully re- 
sumed on the 1st of May, 1821, two years before the time fixed by the 
law. Forty-seven years have elapsed since then, and the verdict of his- 
tory has approved the wisdom of the act, notwithstanding the clamor and 
outcry which at first assailed it. So plainly does this lesson apply to us, 
that in the preface to one of the best histories of England, recently pub- 
lished, the author, who is an earnest friend of the United States, says : 

" 'It seems tome that no thoughtful citizen of any nation can read the 
story of the years before and after Peel's bill of 1819, extending over the 
crash of 1825 -'26, without the strongest desire that such risks and cal- 
amities may be avoided in his own country at any sacrifice. There are 
several countries under the doom of retribution for the license of an in- 
convertible paper currency, and of these the United States are unhappily 



344 IJJ^E OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

one. This passage of English history may possibly help to check the 
levity ^vith which the inevitable 'crash' is spoken of by some, who little 
dream what the horrors and griefs of such a convulsion are. It may do 
more if it should show any considerable number of observers that the 
affairs of the economic world ai-e as truly and certainly under the con- 
trol of natural laws as the world of matter without and that of mind 
within.'" 



This speech is remarkable. It is wonderful. Had that re- 
sumption bill become a law, it has been claimed that the panic of 
1873, and the long years of subsequent distress, might have been, 
if not avoided, at least greatly shortened and alleviated. The ar- 
gument never was and never could be improved upon by any one. 
In the after light that speech was thought a prophecy. Congress 
procrastinated a return to specie payment. Finally the crash 
came, as he had foretold. Garfield once said, "After the battle of 
arms comes the battle of history." In writing a historical esti- 
mate of the leaders of the epoch which closed with the consum- 
mation of specie payments, the critical historian would rightly 
claim that this speech of General Garfield, in the spring of 1868, 
Jive and a-half years before the panic, must take rank as a triumph 
of statesmanship above every argument, no matter how able or 
eloquent, made after thejyanic. In this speech Garfield showed his 
conservatism again in favoring the continuation of greenbacks in 
circulation, the very thing which was done over the bitter oppo- 
sition of rosumptionists seven years before. 

In the earlier part of the speech he showed the necessity of an 
adjustible volume of currency. With specie this was easy. With 
paper currency the volume could be made adjustable through 
banks. They were the institutions to ease us through the straits 
to resumption. Their mission was more fully elaborated in a 
speech of June 7, 1870. The West and South having an insuffi- 
cient number of banks, and, consequently, lacking the currency of 
checks, drafts, etc., were suffering. To meet this, he presented a 
bill redistributing the banks. His views are what most concern us. 



GEEAT QUESTIONS AND GKEAT ANSWERS. 345 

CURRENCY AMD THE BANKS. 

"I wish first to state a few general propositions touching the subjects 
of trade and its instruments. A few simple principles form the founda- 
tion on which rests the whole superstructure of money, currency, and 
trade. They may be thus briefly stated: 

" First. Money, which is a universal measure of value and a medium 
of exchange, must not be confounded with credit currency in any of its 
forms. Nothing is really money which does not of itself possess the full 
amount of the value which it professes on its face to possess. Length 
can only be measured by a standard which in itself possesses length. 
Weight can only be measured by a standard, defined and recognized, 
which in itself possesses weight. So, also, value can only be measured 
by that which in itself possesses a definite and known value. The pre- 
cious metals, coined and stamped, form the money of the world, because 
when thrown into the melting-pot and cast into bars they will sell in the 
market as metal for the same amount that they will pass for in the 
market as coined money. The coining and stamping are but a certifica- 
tion by the government of the quantity and fineness of the metal 
stamped. The coining certifies to the value, but neither creates it nor 
adds to it. 

" Second. Paper currency, when convertible at the will of the holder 
into coin, though not in itself money, is a title to the amount of money 
promised on its face; and so long as there is perfect confidence that it is a 
good title for its whole amount, it can be used as money in the payment 
of debts. Being lighter and more easily carried, it is for many purposes 
more convenient than money, and has become an indispensable substi- 
tute for money throughout all civilized countries. One quality which it 
must possess, and without which it loses its title to be called money, is 
that the promise written on its face must be good and be kept good. 
Tlie declaration on its face must be the truth, the whole truth, and 
nothing but the truth. If the promise has no value, the note itself is 
worthless. If the promise aft'ords any opportunity for doubt, uncertainty, 
or delay, the note represents a vague uncertainty, and is measured only 
by remaining faith in the final redemption of the promise. 

" Third. Certificates of credit under whatever form, are among the 
most efiicient instruments of trade. The most common form of these cer- 
tificates is that of a check or draft. The bank is the institution through 
which the check becomes so powerful an instrument of exchange. The 



346 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

check is comparatively a modern invention, whose functions and im- 
portance are not yet fully recognized. It may represent a deposit of coin 
or of paper currency, convertible or inconvertible ; or may, as is more 
frequently the case, represent merely a credit, secured by property in 
some form, but not by money. The check is not money ; yet, for the 
time being, it performs all the functions of money in the payment of 
debts. No greater mistake can be made than to suppose that the effect- 
ive value of currency is not directly increased by the whole amount of 
checks in circulation. 

"I would not for a moment lose sight of the great first necessity of 
all exchanges, that they be measured by real money, the recognized 
money of the world; nor of that other necessity next in importance, 
that bank notes or treasury notes should represent real money; should 
be of uni'form value throughout the country, and should be sufficient in 
amount to effect all those exchanges in which paper money is actually 
used. I would keep constantly in view both these important factors. But 
that is a superficial and incomplete plan of legislation which does not in- 
clude, in its provisions for the safe and prompt transaction of business, 
those facilities which modern civilization has devised, and which have so 
largely superseded the use of both coin and paper money. 

"The bank has become the indispensable agent and instrument of 
trade throughout the civilized world, and not less in specie paying coun- 
tries than in countries cursed by an inconvertible paper currency. 
Besides its function of issuing circulating notes, it serves as a clearing- 
house for the transactions of its customers. It brings the buyer and sel- 
ler together, and enables them to complete their exchanges. It brings 
debtors and creditors together, and enables them to adjust their accounts. 
It collects the thousand little hoards of unemployed money, and through 
loans and discounts converts them into active cajiital. It is a reservoir 
which collects in amounts available for use, the rain-di'ops which would 
otherwise be lost by dispersion. 

" I find there are still those who deny the doctrine that bank deposits 
form an effective addition to the circulation. But let us see. A bank is 
established at a point thirty or forty miles distant from an}'^ other bank. 
Every man within that circle has been accfistomed tc keep in his pocket 
or safe a considerable sum of money during the year. That avei'age 
amount is virtually withdrawn from circulation, and for the time being 
is canceled, is dead. After a new bank is established, a large portion 



GREAT QUESTIONS AND GEEAT ANSWERS. 34T 

of that average amount is deposited with the bank, and a smaller amount 
is carried in their safes and pockets. These accumulated deposits placed 
in the bank, at once constitute a fund which can be loaned to those who 
need credit. At least tour-fifths of the average amount of deposits can 
be loaned out, thus converting dead capital into active circulation. 

"But the word deposits covers far more than the sums of actual money 
placed in the bank by depositors. McLeod, in his great work on bank- 
ing, says: ' Credits standing in bankers' books, from whatever source, are 
called deposits. Hence a deposit in banking language always means a 
credit in a banker's books in exchange for money or securities for money.' 
— Vol. ii, p. 267. 

"Much the largest proportion of all bank deposits are of this class — 
mere credits on the books of the bank. Outside the bank, these deposits 
are represented by checks and di-afts. Inside the bank, they effect set- 
tlements, and make thousands of payments by mere transfer from one 
man's account to that of another. This checking and counter-checking 
and transferring of credit, amounts to a sura vastly greater than all the 
deposits. No stronger illustration of the practical use of deposits can be 
found than in the curious fact, that all the heavy payn^ents made by the 
merchants and dealers in the city of Amsterdam for half a century, were 
made through a supposed deposit which had entirely disappeared some 
iifty years before its removal was detected. Who does not know that 
the six hundred millions of dollars of deposits reported every quarter as 
a part of the liabilities of the national banks, are mainly credits which 
the banks have given to business men? 

"No currency can meet the wants of this country unless it is founded 
directly upon the demands of business, and not upon the caprice, the ig- 
norance, the political selfishness, of any party in power. 

"What regulates now the loans and discounts and credits of our 
National banks? The business of the country. The amount increases 
or decreases, or remains stationar}-, as business is fluctuating or steady. 
This is a natural form of exchange, based upon the business of the coun- 
try and regarded by its changes. And Avhen that happy day arrives, 
when the whole volume of our currency is redeemable in gold at the will 
of the holder, and recognized by all nations as equal to money, then the 
whole business of banking, the whole volume of currency, the whole 
amount of credits, whether in the form of checks, drafts, or bills, will be 
regulated by the same general law — the business of the country." 



348 _.IFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

At last, Congress came up to the position taken by Garfield in 
1868. In 1875, the Resumption Act was passed, providing that, 
after January 1, 1879, the United States Treasury would olfer one 
dollar in gold for each dollar in greenbacks presented for re- 
demption. It was virtually the same law that Garfield had 
advocated ten years before. It was, even now, all that popular 
opinion would allow. In the interim between 1875 and 1879, 
every effort was made by the paper-money men to repeal the act. 
Of General Garfield's speeches in its defense, we select that of 
November 16, 1877, as the type. The reader shall see whether he 
had changed his views, wdiether the panic and hard times had dis- 
concerted his calculations? Let James A. Garfield speak for him- 
self : 

THE REPEAL OF THE RESUMPTION ACT. 

"Wc are engaged in a debate which has lasted in the Anglo-Saxon 
world for more than two centuries, and hardly any phase of it to which 
we have listened in the course of the last week is new. Hai-dly a pro- 
position has been heard on either side which was not made one huudretl 
and eighty years ago in England, and almost a hundred years ago in the 
United States. So singularly does history repeat itself. 

"That man makes a vital mistake who judges of truth in relation 
to financial affairs from the changing i)hases of public opinion. He might 
as well stand on the shores of the Bay of Fuudy, and, from the ebb and 
flow of a single tide, attempt to determine the general level of the sea, 
as to stand on this floor and from the current of public opinion in any one 
debate, judge of the general level of the public mind. It is only wlien 
long spaces along the shore of the sea are taken into account, that the 
grand level is f)un(l, from which all heights and depths are measured. 
And it is only when long spaces of time are considered that we find at 
last the level of public opinion which we call the general judgment of 
mankind. From the turbulent ebb and flow of the public o])inion of to- 
day I appeal to that settled judgment of mankind on the subject-matter 
of this debate. 

" In the short time which is allotted to me I invite tlie attention of gen- 
tlemen, who do me the honor to listen, to a very remarkable fact. I sup- 
pose it will be admitted on all hands, that 1860 was a year of unusual 
business prosperity in the United States. It was at a time when the 



GEEAT QUESTIONS AND GEEAT ANSWERS. 349 

bounties of Provideuoe were scattered Avith a liberal hand over the face 
of our Republic. It was a time when all classes of our community were 
well and i)rofitably employed. It was a time of peace; the apprehen- 
sion of our gi-eat civil war had not yet seized the minds of our people. 
Great crops North and South, great general prosperity marked the era. 

" If one thing was settled above all other questions of financial policy 
in the American mind at that time, it was this, that the only sound, 
safe, trustworthy standard of value is coin of a standard weight and 
fineness, or a paper currency convertible into coin at the will of the holder. 
That was and had been for several generations the almost unanimous 
opinion of the American people. It is true there was here and there a 
theorist dreaming of the philosopher's stone, dreaming of a time when 
paper money, wliich he worshiped as a kind of fetish, would be crowned 
as a god ; l)ut those dreamers were so few in number that they made 
no ripple on the current of public thought, and their theories formed 
no part of public opinion, and the opinion of 1860-61 was the aggregated 
result of the opinions of all the foremost Americans who have left their 
record upon this subject. 

"I make this statement without fear of contradiction, because I have 
carefully examined the list of illustrious names and the records they 
have left bcliind them. No man ever sat in the chair of Washington as 
President of the United States wdio has left on record any word that fa- 
vors inconvertible paper money as a safe standard of value. Every 
President who has left a record ou the subject has spoken without quali- 
fication in favor of the doctrine I have announced. No man ever sat in 
the chair of the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States who, if he 
has spoken at all on the su])ject, has not left on record an opinion 
equally strong, from Hamilton down to the days of the distinguished 
father of my colleague [Mr. Ewing], and to the present moment. 

"The general judgment of all men who deserve to be called the lead- 
ers of Americ m thought ought to be considered worth something in an 
American House of Representatives on the discussion of a great topic 
like this. What happened to cause a departui-e from this general level 
of public opinion? Every man knows the history. War, the imperious 
necessities of war, led the men of 1861-'62 to depart from the doctrine of 
the fathers ; but they did not depart from it as a matter of choice, but 
compelled by overmastering necessity. Every man in the Stiiate and 
House of 1862 who voted for the greenback law, announced that he did 



350 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

it with the greatest possible reluctance and ^vitll the gravest apprehension 
for the result. Every man who spoke on the subject, from Thaddeus 
Stevens to the humblest member in this House, and from Fessenden to the 
humblest Senator, warned his country against the danger that might fol- 
low, and pledged his honor that at the earliest possible moment the country 
should be brought back to the old, safe-established doctrine of the fathers. 

" When they made the law creating the greenbacks they incorporated 
into its essential provisions the most solemn pledge men could devise, 
that they would come back to the doctrines of the fathers. The very 
law that created the greenback provided for its redemption and retire- 
ment ; and every time the necessities of war required an additional issue, 
new guarantees and new limitations were put upon the new issues to in- 
sure their ultimate redemption. They were issued upon the fundamen- 
tal condition that the number should be so limited forever that under 
the law of contracts the courts might enforce their sanctions. The men 
of 1862 knew the dangers from sad experience in our history ; and, like 
Ulysses, lashed themselves to the mast of public credit when they em- 
barked upon the stormy and boisterous sea of inflated paper money, that 
they might not be beguiled by the siren song which would be sung to 
them when they Avere afloat on the wild waves. 

"But the times have changed; new men are on deck; men who have 
forgotten the old pledges; and now only twelve years have passed (for as 
late as 1865 this House, with but six dissenting votes, resolved again to 
stand by the old ways and bring the country back to sound money) — only 
twelve years have passed, and what do we find? We find a group of the- 
orists and doctrinaires who look upon the wisdom of the fathers as fool- 
ishness. We find some who advocate what they call "absolute money;" 
who declare that a piece of paper stamped a " dollar" is a dollar; that 
gold and silver are a part of the barbarism of the past, which ought to be 
forever abandoned. AVe hear them declaring that resumption is a delu- 
sion and a snare. We here them declaring that the eras of prosperity 
are the eras of paper money; and they point us to all times of inflation 
as a period of blessing to the people, prosperity to business ; and they ask 
us no more to vex their ears Avith any allusion to the old standard, the 
money of the Constitution. Let the wild crop of financial literature that 
has sprung into life within the last twelve years witness how widely and 
how far we have drifted. We have lost our old moorings, have thrown 
overboard our old compass; we sail by alien stars, looking not for the 
haven, but are afloat on an unknown sea 



GKEAT QUESTIONS AND GEE AT ANSWERS. 351 

" No theory of currency that existed in 1860 can justify the volume 
now outstanding. Either our laAvs of trade, our laAvs of value, our laws 
of exchange, have been utterly reversed or the currency of to-(.]ay is in ex- 
cess of the legitimate wants of trade. But I admit fi-eely that no Con- 
gress is wise enough to determine how much currency the country needs. 
There never was a body of men wise enough to do that. The volume of 
currency needed, depends upon laws that are higher than Congress and 
higher than governments. One thing only legislation can do. It can de- 
termine the quality of the money of the country. The laws of trade 
alone can determine its quantity. 

" In connection with this vievr we are met by the distinguished gentle- 
man irom Pennsylvania [Mr. Kelley] with two historical references on 
which he greatly relies in opposing resumption. The first is his refer- 
ence to France. Follow France, says the honorable gentleman from 
Pennsylvania, follow France, and see how she poured out her volumes of 
paper money, and by it survived a great crisis and maintained her busi- 
ness prosperity. Oh, that the gentleman and those who vote with him 
would follow France! I gladly follow up his allusion to France. As a 
proof that we have not enough money, he notices the fact that France has 
always used more money than either the United States or England. I ad- 
mit it. But does the gentleman not know that the traditions and habits of 
France are as unlike those of England and the United States as those of 
any two nations of the Avorld can be in regard to the use of money? I 
say to the gentleman that in France, banking, as an instrument of trade, 
is almost unknown. There are no banks in France except the Bank of 
France itself The government has been trying for twenty years to es- 
tablish branches in all the eighty-nine departments, and thus far only fifty- 
six branches have been organized. Our national, State, and private 
banks number nearly ten thousand. The habits of the French people 
are not adapted to the use of banks as instruments of exchange. All the 
deposits in all the saving-baiiks of France are not equal to the deposits in 
the saving-banks of New York City alone. It is the frequent complaint 
of Americans who make purchases in Paris that the merchants will not 
accept drafts, even on the Bank of France. 

"Victor Bonnet, a recent French writer, says: 'The use of deposits, 
bank accounts, and checks, is still in its infancy in this country. They 
are very little used even in great cities, while in the rest of France they 
are completely unknown. It is, however, to be hoped that there will he 
more employed hereafter, and that here, as in England and the United 



352 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

States, payments will be more generally made tliroiigli the medium of 
bankers and by transfers in account-current. If this should be the case, 
we shall economize both in the use of specie and of bank-notes ; for it is 
to be observed that the use of bank-notes does not reach its fullest de- 
velopment except in countries where the keeping of bank accounts is 
universal, as is evident by comparing France in this respect with En- 
ghuid.' 

"M. Finard, manager of the Comptoir d'Escompte, testified before the 
commission of inquiry, that the greatest efibrts had been made by that 
institution to induce French merchants and shopkeepers to adopt English 
habits in respect to the use of checks and the keeping of bank accounts, 
but in vain; their prejudices were invincible. 'It was no use reasoning 
with them ; they would not do it, because they would not.' 

'' So long as the business of their country is thus done hand to hand 
by the use of cash, they need a much greater volume of money in i)ro- 
portion to their business than England or the United States. 

"How is it in England? Statistics, which no man will gainsay, will 
show that ninety-five per cent, of all the great mercantile transactions of 
England is done by drafts, checks, and commercial bills and only five 
per cent, by the actual use of cash. The great business of commerce 
and trade is done by drafts and bills. Money is now only the small 
change of commerce. And how is it in this country? We have adopted 
the habits of England, and not of France, in this regard. In 1871, 
when I Avas Chairman of the Committee on Banking and Currency, I 
asked the Comptroller of the Currency to issue an order naming fifty- 
two banks which were to make an analysis of their receipts. I selected 
three groups : The first group were the city banks ; not, however, the 
clearing-house banks, but the great city banks not in the clearing-house 
association. The second group consisted of banks in cities of the size of 
Toledo and Dayton, in the State of Ohio. In the third group, if I may 
coin a word, I selected the 'countriest' banks — the smallest that could 
be found at points away from railroads and telegraphs. 

" The order vras that all those banks should analyze all their receipts for 
six consecutive days, putting into one list all that can be called cash, either 
in coin, greenbacks, bank-notes, or coupons ; and into the other list all 
drafts, checks, or commercial bills. What was the result? Durmg those 
'■>ix days 8157,000,000 were received over the counters of those fifty-two 
banks; and, of that amount, $19,370,000 was in cash — twelve i)er cent. 



GKEAT QUESTIONS AND GKEAT ANS^YERS. 353 

(Only in cash ; and eighty-eight per cent, of that vast amount, represent- 
ing every grade of business, was in checks, drafts, and commercial bills. 
Does a country that transacts its business in that way i.eed as much 
currency afloat among the people as a country like France, without 
banks, without savings institutions, and whose people keep their money 
in hoards. 

"I i-emember in reading one of the novels of Dumas, when an officer 
of the French army sent home his agent to run his farm, he loaded him 
down with silver enough to conduct the business for a year; tlT£re was 
no thought of giving him credit in a bank; but of locking in the till, at 
the beginning of the year, enough coin to do the business of the year. 
So much for the difference between the habits of France and those of 
Anglo-Saxon countries. Let us now consider the ctmduct of France 
during and since the German war. In July, 1870, the year before the 
war began, the Bank of France had outstanding $251,000,000 of paper 
circulation, and held in its vaults ^229,000,000 of coin. When the war 
broke out, they were compelled immediately to issue more paper, and to 
make it a legal tender. They took pattern by us in their necessity, and 
issued paper until, on the 19th of November, 1873, four years ago next 
Monday, they had $602,000,000 of paper issued by the Bank of France, 
while the coin in the bank was reduced to $146,000,000. 

" But the moment their great war was over, they did what I recom- 
mended to the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Kelley], they com- 
menced to reduce their paper circulation, and in one year reduced it 
almost 8100,000,000, and increased j;he coin circulation $120,000,000. 
In the year 1876 they had pushed into circulation $200,000,000 of coin, 
and retired nearly all their small notes. They are at this moment within 
fifty days of resumption of specie payments. Under their law, fifty days 
from to-day, France will again come into the illustrious line of nations 
who believe in a sound currency. I commend to the eloquent gentleman 
from Pennsylvania [Mr. Kelley] the example of France. . . . 

" The overwhelming and fixed opinion of England is that the cash- 
resumption act of 1819 was a blessing and not a curse, and that th'6 
evils which England suffered from 1821 to 1826 did not arise from the 
resumption of cash payments. I appeal to every great writer of ac- 
knowledged character in England for the truth of this position. I ask 
the gentleman to read the eighth chapter of the second book of INIiss 
Martineau's History of the Peace, where the case is admirably stated, 
23 



3o4 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

I appeal also to the opinion of Parliament itself, especially to the House 
of Commons, which is as sensitive an index of public opinion as En- 
gland knows. When they were within about eighteen months of re- 
sumption of specie payment, a motion was made, like the motion of my 
colleague from Ohio [Mr. Ewing], that the resumption-act bill be re- 
pealed or modified, because it was pro.ducing distress. And a number of 
gentlemen in the House of Commons made speeches of the same spirit as 
those which we have heard here within the past week. The distress among 
the petjple, the crippling of business, the alarm of the mercantile classes, 
all were paraded in the House of Commons, and were answered by those 
knights of finance whose names have become illustrious in English his- 
tory. And at the end of a long debate on that proposition, on the 11th 
of April, 1821, a vote was taken, and the proposition was rejected by a 
vote of 141 to 27. In other words, by a vote of 141 to 27 the House 
of Commons resolved that their act for the resumption of specie pay- 
ments was not causing distress, and ought not to be repealed, and ought 
not to be modified, except to make it more effective. As a matter of 
fact, it was so modified as to allow resumption to take place much sooner 
than was provided in the act of 1819. ... 

"I now proceed to notice the second point that has been made in favor 
of this bill. It is assumed that specie payment will injure the debtor 
class of this country, and thereby 0})press the poor ; in other words, that 
the enforcement of the resumption law will oppress the poor and increase 
the riches of the rich. It is assumed that the laboring-men are in debt, 
and that the rich men constitute the, creditor class. I deny this proposition 
in toto. I affirm that the vast majority of the creditors of this country 
are the poor people; that the vast majority of the debtors of this country 
are the well-to-do people — in fact, people who are moderately rich. 

"As a matter of fact, the poor man, the laboring- man, can not get 
heavily in debt. He has not the security to offer. Men lend their 
money on security, and in the very nature of the case poor men can 
borrow but little. What then do poor men do with their small earnings? 
When a man has earned, out of his hard work, a hundred dollars more 
than he needs for current expenses, he reasons thus: 'I can not go into 
business with a hundred dollars; I can not embark in trade; but, as I 
work, I want my money to work.' And so he puts his small gains where 
they will earn sometliing. He lends his money to a wealthier neighbor, 
or puts it in the savings-bank. There were, in the United States, on the 



GEEAT QUESTIONS AND GREAT ANSWERS. 355 

first of November, 1876, forty-four hundred and seventy-five savings- 
banks and private banks of deposit, and their deposits amounted to 
81,377,000,000, ahnost three-fourths of the amount of our national debt. 
Over two and a half millions of the citizens of the United States were de- 
positors. In some States the deposits did not average more than S250 
each. The great mass of the depositors are men and women of small 
means — laborers, widows, and orphans. They are the lenders of this 
enormous aggregate. The savings-banks, as their agents, lend it to 
whom? Not to the laboring poor, but to the business men who wish to 
enlarge their business beyond their capital. Speculators sometimes bor- 
row it. But in the main, well-to-do business men borrow these hoardings. 
Thus the poor lend to the rich. ... 

"There is another way in which poor men dispose of their money. A 
man says : ' I can keep my wife and babies from starving while I live and 
have my health, but if I die they may be compelled to go over the hills 
to the poor-house'; and, agonized by that thought, he saves out of his 
hard earnings enough to take out and keep alive a small life-insurance 
policy, so that, if he dies, there may be something left, provided the in- 
surance company to which he intrusts his money is honest enough to keep 
its pledges. And how many men do you think have done that in the 
United States? I do not know the number for the whole country, but I 
do know this, that from a late report to the insurance commissioner of 
the State of New York, it appears that the companies doing business in 
that State had 774,625 policies in force, and the face value of these poli- 
cies was 81,922,000,000. I find, by looking over the returns, that in my 
State there are 55,000 policies outstanding; in Pennsylvania, 74,000; in 
Maine, 17,000; in Maryland, 25,000; and, in the State of New York, 
160,090. There are, of course, some rich men insured in these compa- 
nies, but the majority are poor people, for the policies do not average 
more than 62,200 each. What is done with the assets of these compji- 
nies, which amount to 8445,000,000 ? They are loaned out. Here again 
the creditor class is the poor, and the insurance companies are the sigents 
of the poor to lend their money for them. It would be dishonorable for 
Congress to legislate either for the debtor class or for the creditor class 
alone. We ought to legislate for the whole country. But when gentle- 
men attempt to manufacture sentiment against the resumption act, by 
saying it will help the rich and hurt the poor, they are overwhelmingly 
answered by the tacts. 



356 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

" Sujipose you undo the work that Congress has attempted — to resume 
specie i)ayment — what will result? You will depreciate the value of the 
greenback. Suppose it falls ten cents on the dollar, you will have de- 
stroyed ten per cent, of the value of every deposit in the savings-banks, 
ten per cent, of every life-insurance policy and fire-insurance policy, of 
every pension to the soldier, and of every day's wages of every laborer 
in the nation. 

"In the census of 1S70, it was estimated that on any given day there 
were 8120,000,000 due to laborers for their unpaid wages. That is a 
small estimate. Let the greenback dollar come down ten per cent, and 
you take 812,000,000 from the men who have already earned it. In the 
name of every interest connected with the poor man I denounce this 
effort to prevent' resumption. Daniel Webster never uttered a greater 
truth in finance than when he said that of all contrivances to cheat the 
laboring-classes of mankind, none was so effective as that which deluded 
them with an irredeemable paper money. The rich can take care of 
them.selves, but the dead-weight of all the fluctuations and losses fall? 
ultimately on the poor man who has only his day's work to sell. 

"I admit that in the passage from peace to war there was a great 
loss to one class of the community, to the creditors; and in the return 
to the basis of peace some loss to debtors was inevitable. This injustice 
was unavoidable. The loss and gain did not fall upon the same. The 
evil could not be balanced nor adjusted. The debtors of 1862-65 are 
not the debtors of 1877. The most competent judges declare that the 
average life of the private debts in the United States is not more than 
two years. Of course, obligations may be renewed, but the average 
length of private debts in this country is not more than tw'o years. 
Now, we have already gone two years on the road to resumption, and 
the country has been adjusting itself to the new condition of things. 
The people have expected resumption, and have already discounted most 
of the hardships and sufferings incident to the change. The agony is 
almost over ; and if we now embark again upon the open sea we lose all 
that has been gained, and plunge the country into the necessity of vent- 
uring once more over the same boisterous ocean, with all its perils and 
uncertainties. I speak the deepest convictions of my mind and heart 
when I say that, should this resumption act be re})ealed and no effectual 
substitute be put in its place, the day is not far distant when all of us, 
looking back on this time from the depths of the evils which will result. 



GKEAT QUESTIONS AND GREAT ANSWERS. 357 

will regret, Avith all our power to regret, the day when we again let 
luuse the dangers of inflation upon the country. 

* ^ ;1; ;!; ;!; ;ii ;lc * 

"Although I do not believe in keeping greenbacks as a permanent 
currency in the United States, although I do not myself believe in the 
Government becoming a permanent banker, yet I am willing for one that, 
in order to prevent tl>e shock to business which gentlemen fear, the 
8300,000,000 of greenbacks shall be allowed to remain in circulation as 
long as the wants of trade show manifestly that they are needed. X(jw, 
is that a great contraction ? Is it contraction at all ? 

" Why, gentlemen, when you have brought your greenback up two 
and one-half cents liigher in value, you will have added to your volume 
of money $200,000,000 of gold coin which can not circulate until green- 
backs are brought to par. 

"Let those who are afraid of contraction consider that and answer it. 

"Summing it all up in a word: the struggle now pending in the 
House is on the one hand to make the greenback better, and on the 
other to make it w^orse. The resumption act is making it better every 
day. Kepeal that act and you make it infinitely worse. In the name 
of every man who w^ants his own when he has earned it, I rjemand that 
we do not make the wages of the poor man to shrivel in his hands after 
he has earned it; but that his money shall be made better and better, 
until the plow-holder's money shall be as good as the bond-holder's 
money; until our standard is one, and there is no longer one money for 
the rich and another for the poor." 

With these bits of marble chipped from the temple of his argu- 
ments on the currency question, we must content ourselves. 
Upon this question Garfield was undoubtedly ahead of his gener- 
ation. The resumption bill which he introduced in 1868 was 
better than the one adopted in 1875. He presented the fiuula- 
mental principles as he understood them in 1868. From them he 
never changed. All subsequent efforts were but their elaboration, 
and, at this writing, history itself is their fulfillment and demon- 
stration. 

It is easy to see that his style of speaking changed somewhat. 
He became more terse and epigrammatic. He condensed the 



358 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

philosophical parts of his speeches, and enlarged the practical 
parts. He became more direct in address, more sparing of orna- 
ment, and simpler in language. But this was all. He was never 
known to be on but one side of a question. He took his position 
onlv after the mo-st laborious investigations and careful thought. 
Once taken, nothing could drive him from it. In his answers to 
the riddles propounded by the Sphinx of American currency and 
finance, James A. Garfield is entitled to a place in the gallery of 
fame, beside the greatest financiers known to our national history. 
In the future, no authority will be, or can be, higher than Gar- 
field. 

Our next inquiry relates to Garfield's record upon questions affect- 
ing THI-] Revenue and Expenditures of the United States, 
Owing to his long service on the Committees of Ways and Means 
and on Appropriations, these twin topics of surpassing impo,rtance 
continually lay like couchant lions right in his political pathway. 

Of the question of revenue, the tariff is the most vital branch. 
On the subjects of free-trade and protection, Garfield had made up 
his mind \j'hile at Williams College. Professor Perry, the in- 
structor in political economy, was an unqualified free-trader. After 
his usual careful investigation, Garfield took the opposite view. 
He formulated the following proposition : "As an abstract theory, 
the doctrine of Free-Trade seems to be universally true, but as a 
question of practicability, under a government like ours, the pro- 
tective system seems to be indispensable." 

Into the defense of that proposition he threw all his energies. 
In his speeches on the tariff we will find but one continual elabo- 
r ition of this view. The speeches are moderate and conserva- 
tive, avoiding cither extreme. His object was to legislate for the 
whole country and not for any locality or class alone. On April 1, 
1870, he delivered a speech on the tariff, which is of the first rank 
among his earlier efforts. 

It presents an interesting history of England's tariff jiolicy to- 
ward the colonies, a brilliant discussion of the trend of prices 
since the war, and closes with a rpview of the eventful history of 
tariff legislation in this country, not omitting the South Carolina 



GEEAT QUESTIONS AND GEEAT ANSWEES. 359 

nullification. The high tariffs required by the high prices pre- 
vailing during the war, he tliought, should be gradually re- 
duced. Every one knows that the advantage of a high tariff on 
imports is the protection it gives to American industry by keep- 
ing up the j)rices here, and preventing competition with the cheap 
labor of Europe. But it is equally true that, while keeping prices 
up is good for the seller, and indirectly for the laborer whom he 
eiiiploys, it is bad for the buyer. Free-trade makes low prices. 
Avoiding alike the Scylla on the one hand and the Charybdis on 
the other, Garfield chose a medium. He closed his speech of April 
1, 1870, by an appeal against either extreme: 

•' I stand now where I have always stood since I have been a member 
of this House. I take the liberty of quoting, from the Congressional 
Globe of 1866, the following remarks which I then made on the subject of 
the tariff: 

" ' We have seen that one extreme school of economists would place 
the price of all manufactured articles in the hands of foreign producers 
by rendering it impossible for our manufacturei's to compete with them ; 
while the other extreme school, by making it impossible for the foreigner 
to sell his competing wares in our market, would give the people no im- 
mediate clieck upon the prices which our manufacturers might fix for 
their products, I disagree with both these extremes, I hold that a prop- 
erly adjusted competition between home and foreign products is the best 
gauge by which to regulate international trade. Duties should be so 
high that our manufacturers can fairly comj^ete with the foreign product, 
but not so high as to enable them to drive out the foreign article, enjoy a 
monopoly of the trade, and regulate the price as they please. This is 
my doctrine of protection. If Congress pursue this line of policy stead- 
ily, we shall, year by year, approach more nearly to the basis of free- 
trade, because we shall be more nearly able to compete with other nations 
on equal terms. I am for that protection which leads to tdtimate free-trade. 
I am for that free-trade which can only be achieved through a reasonable 
protection.' " 

As the representative of General Garfield's tariff speeches in these 
pages, we select the one of February 4, 1878. Of this speech a 
gentleman of high abilities and information, says: "Having read 



360 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

and re-read it carefully, and having read all the great speeches 
made in Congress for forty years before the war on this difficult 
question, it is my deliberate conviction that the sound American 
doctrine of j)rotection has never been stated with equal clearness, 
breadth, and practicality." 

THE TARIFF. 

"A few days ago, the distniguished gentleman from Virginia, who now 
occupies the chair [Mr. Tucker], made a speech of rare ability and 
power, in which he placed at the front of his line of discussion a question 
that was never raised in American legislation until our present form of 
Government was forty years old ; the question of the constitutionality of 
a tariff' for the encouragement and protection of manufacturers. The first 
page of the printed speech of the gentleman, as it appears in the Con- 
gressional Record, is devoted to an elaborate and very able discussion of 
that question. 

" He insists that the two powers conferred upon Congress, to levy duties 
and to regulate commerce, are entirely distinct from each other; that the 
one can not by any fair construction be applied to the other ; that the 
methods of the one are not the methods of the other, and that the capital 
mistake which he conceives has been made in the legislation of the 
country for many years is that the power to tax has been applied to the 
regulation of commerce, and through that to the jjrotection of manufac- 
tures. He holds that if we were to adopt a proper construction of the 
Constitution we sliould find that the regulation of commerce does not 
permit the protection of manufactures, nor can the jiower to tax be ap- 
plied, directly or indirectly, to that obj(>ct. 

"I will not enter into any elaborate discussion of that question, but I 
can not refrain from expressing my admiration of the courage of the gen- 
tleman from •Virginia, who in that part of his speech brought himself 
into point-blank range of the terrible artillery of James Madison, one of 
the fathers oi the Constitution, and Virginia's great expounder of its }iro- 
visions. 

"In a letter addressed to Joseph C. Cabell, on the 18th of March, 
1827, will be found one of those discussions in which Mr. Madison gives 
categorically thirteen reasons against the very constitutional theory ad- 
vanced now by the gentleman from Virginia [INTr. Tucker]. It would 
almost seem that the distin-aiished author of the book which I hold in 



GREAT QUESTIONS AND GEEAT ANSWERS. 361 

my hand had prophetically in his mind the very speech delivered in this 
House by the later Virginian, for he refutes its arguments, point by point, 
thoroughly and completely. 

" I say that more than a hundred pages of Madison's Avorks are devoted 
to discusshig and exploding what was, in 1828, this new notion of consti- 
tutiouid construction. In one of these papers he calls to mind the fact 
that sixteen of the men who framed the Constitution sat in the fii'st Con- 
gress and helped to frame a tariff expressly for the protection of domestic 
industries; and it is fair to presume that these men understood the mean- 
ing of the Constitution. 

"I will close this phase of the discussion by calling the attention of 
the committee to the language of the Constitution itself: 

" 'The Congress shall have jwwer to lay and collect taxes, duties, im- 
posts, and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense 
and general welfare of the United States.' 

'•Language could hardly be plainer to declare the great general objects 
to which the taxing power is to be applied. 

" It should be borne in mind that revenue is the life-blood of a govern- 
ment, circulating through every part of its organization and giving force 
and vitality to every function. The power to tax is therefore the great 
motive power, and its regulation impels, retards, restrains, or limits all 
the functions of the Government. 

" What are these functions? The Constitution authorizes Congress to 
regulate and couti-ol this great motive power, the power to levy and col- 
lect duties; and the objects for which duties are to be levied and col- 
lected are summarized in three great groups: First, 'to pay debts.' By 
this, the arm of the Government sweeps over all its past history and pro- 
tects its honor by discharging all obligations that have come down from 
former years. Second, is ' to provide for the common defense.' By this, 
the mailed arm of the Government sweeps the great circle of the Union 
to defend it against foes fiom without and insurrection within. And, 
third, is to ' promote the general welfare.' These are the three great 
objects to which the Constitution applies the power of taxation. They 
are all great, beneficient, national objects, and can not be argued out of 
existence. 

" The fifteen specifications following in the eighth section of the same 
article— such as the power to raise armies, to maintain a navy, to establish 
courts, to coin money, to regulate commerce with foreign na'tions and 



302 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

among the several States, to promote science and the useful arts by- 
granting patents and copyrights — are all specifications and limitations of 
the methods by which this great central power of taxation is to be ap- 
plied to the common defense and the general welfare. And it is left to 
tlie discretion of Congress to determine how these objects shall be se- 
cured l)y the use of the powers thus conferred upon it. 

" The men who created this Constitution also set it in operation, and 
developed their own idea of its character. That idea was unlike any 
other that then prevailed upon the earth. They made the general wel- 
fare of the people the great source and foundation of the common defense. 
In all the nations of the Old World the public defense was provided for 
by great standing armies, navies, and fortified posts, so that the nation 
might every moment be fully armed against danger from without or tur- 
bulence within. Our fathers said: * Though we will use the taxing power 
to maintain a small army and navy sufficient to keep alive the knowl- 
edge, of war, yet the main reliance for our defense shall be the intelli- 
gence, culture, and skill of our people; a development of our own intel- 
lectual and material resources, which will enable us to do every tiling 
that may be necessary to equip, clothe, and feed ourselves in time of war, 
and make oui'selves intelligent, happy, and prosperous in peace.' 

" To lay the foundation for the realization of these objects was a lead- 
ing motive which led to the formation of the Constitution, and was the 
earliest and greatest object of solicitude in the First Congress. 

"Two days after the votes for president were counted, and long befoie 
Washington was inaugurated, James Madison rose in the first House of 
Representatives, and for the first time moved to go into the Committee of 
the Whole on the state of the Union, for the express purpose of canyiiicc 
out the theory of the Constitution to provide for the common defense 
and the general welfare, both by regulating commerce and protecting 
American manufactures. Thus, on the 8th of April, 1789, he opened a 
debate whicli lasted several weeks, in which was substantially develo})ed 
every idea that has since appeared save one, the notion that it was uncon- 
stitutional to protect American industry. All other phases of the sub- 
ject were fully and thoroughly handled in that great debate. 

"Our fathers liad been disciplined in the severe school of experience 
during the long period of colonial dependence. The heavy hand of Brit- 
ish repression was laid upon all their attempts to become a self-snpjiorting 
people. The navigation laws and commercial regulations of the mother 



GEEAT QUESTIONS AND GREAT ANSWERS. 363 

country were based upon the theory that the colonies were founded for 
the sole purpose of raising up customers for her trade. They were 
allowed to purchase in British markets alone any manufactured article 
which England had to sell. In short, they were compelled to trade with 
England ou her own terms ; and whether buying or selling, the product 
must be carried in British bottoms at the carrier's own price. In addi- 
tion to this, a revenue tax of 5 per cent, was imposed on all colonial 
exports and imports. 

The colonists were doomed to the servitude of furnishing, by the sim- 
plest forms of labor, raw materials for the mother country, who arro- 
gated to herself the sole right to eupply her colonies with the finished 
jinxUict. To our fathers, independence was emancipation from this serv- 
itude. They knew that civilization advanced from the hunting to the 
pastoral state, from the pastoral to the agricultural, which has such 
charms for the distinguished gentleman from Virginia. But they also 
knew that no merely agricultural people had ever been able to rise to a 
high civilization and to self-supporting independence. They determined, 
therefore, to make their emancipation complete by adding to agriculture 
the mechanic arts, which in their turn M'ould carry agriculture and all 
other industries to a still higher development, and place our people in 
the fiont rank of civilized and self-supporting nations. This idea in- 
spired the legislation of all the earlier Congresses. It found expression 
in tlie first tariff act of 1789; in the higher rates of the act of 1790; 
and in the still larger schedule and increased rates of the acts of 1797 
and 1800. 

In 1806 the non-importation act forbade the importation of British 
manufactures of silk, cloth, nails, spikes, brass, tin, and many other arti- 
cles; and the eight years of embargo witnessed a great growth in Amer- 
ican manufactures. When the non-importation act was repealed in 1814, 
John C. Calhoun assured the country that Congress would not fiiil to 
provide other adequate n\eans for promoting the development of our 
industries; and, under his lead, the protective tarifl^ of 1816 was 
enacted. 

"I have given this brief historical sketch for the purpose of exhibiting 
the ideas out of which the tariff legislation of this country has sprung. 
It has received the support of the most renowned names in our early his- 
tory; and, though the principle of protection has sometimes been carried 
to an unreasonable extreme, thus bringing reproach upon the system, it 



364 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

has nevertheless borue many of the fruits which were anticipated by those 
who planted the genu. 

" Geutlenieu who oppose this view of pubUc poUcy tell us that they 
favor a tariff for revenue alone. I therefore iuvite their attention to the 
revenue phase of the question. The estimated expenditures for the next 
fi>cal year are two hundred and eighty and one-half million dollars, in- 
cluding interest on the public debt and the appropriations required by law 
for the sinking fund. The Secretary of the Treasury estimates the reve- 
nues which our present laws will furnish at $269,000,000; from customs, 
one hundred and thirty-three millions; from internal revenue, one hun- 
dred and twenty millions; and from miscellaneous sources, sixteen mill- 
ions. He tells us that it will be necessary to cut down the expenditure? 
eleven millions below the estimates in order to prevent a deficit of that 
amount. The revenues of the last fiscal year failed by three and a 
quarter millions to meet the exj^enditures required by law. 

"In the face of these facts can we safely diminish our revenues? If 
we mean to preserve the public faith and meet all the necessities of the 
Government we can not reduce the present revenues a single dollar. Yet 
the majority of this House not only propose to reduce the internal tax on 
spirits and tobacco but they propose in this bill to reduce the revenues on 
customs by at least $6,000,000. To avoid the disgrace of a deficit they 
propose to suspend the operations of the sinking fund and thereby shake 
the foundation of the public credit. But they tell us that some of the re- 
ductions made in this bill will increase rather than diminish the revenue. 
Perhaps on a few articles this will be true; but as a whole it is undeniable 
that this bill will effect a considerable reduction in the revenues from 
customs. 

"Gentlemen on the other side have been in the habit of de- 
nouncing our present tariff laws as destructive to, rather than pro- 
ductive of, revenue. Let me invite their attention to a few plain 

facts: 

« 

"During the fifteen years that preceded our late war — a period of so- 
called revenue tariffs — we raised from customs an average annual revenue 
of forty-seven and a half million dollars, never in any year receiving 
more than sixty-four millions. That system brought us a heavy deficit 
in 1860, so that Congress was compelled to l)orrow money to meet the 
ordinary expenses of the Government. 

"Do tlu-y tell us that our present law fails to produce an adequate 



GREAT QUESTIOXS AXD GREAT ANSWERS. 365 

revenue? They denounce it as not a revenue tariff. Let them wrestle 
with the following fact: During the eleven years that have passed since 
the close of the war we have averaged one hundred and seventy and 
one-half million dollars of revenue per annum from customs alone. Can 
tliey say that this is not a revenue tariff which produces more than three 
times as much revenue per aniuim as that law did which they delight to 
call 'the revenue tariff?' In one year, 1872, the revenues from the ciis- 
Unm amounted to two hundred and twelve millions. Can they say that 
the present law does not produce revenue? It produces from textile 
fabrics alone more revenue than we ever raised from all sources under 
any tariff before the war. From this it follows that the assault upon 
the present law fails if made on the score of revenue alone. 

" I freely admit that revenue is the primary object of taxation. That 
oliject is attained by existing law. But it is an incidental and vitally 
important object of the law to keep in healthy growth those industries 
which are necessary to the well-being of the whole country. 

"Let us glance at the leading industries which, under the provisions 
of the existing law, are enabled to maintain themselves in the sharp 
struggle of competition with other countries. I will name them in five 
groups. Ill the first I place the textile fabrics, manufactures of cotton, 
wool, flax, hemp, jute, and silk. From these we received during the 
last fiscal year $50,000,000, which is more than one-third of all our 
customs revenue. 

"It is said that a tax should not be levied upon the clothing of the 
people. This would be a valid objection were it not for the fiict that 
objects of the highest national importance are secured by its imposition. 
That forty-five millions of people should be able to clothe themselves 
without helpless dependence upon other nations is a matter of transcend- 
ent importance to every citizen. What American can be indifferent to 
the fact that in the year 1875 the State of Massachusetts alone produced 
992,000,000 yards of textile fabrics, and in doing so consumed seventy- 
five million dollars' worth of the products of the fields and flocks, and 
gave employment to 120,000 artisans? There is a touch of pathos in 
the apologetic reply of Governor Spottswood, an early colonial Governor 
of Virginia, when he wrote to his British superiors : 

" 'The people of Virginia, more of necessity than inclination, attempt 
to clothe themselves with their own manufactui-es. ... It is cer- 
tainly necessary to divert their application to some commodity less preju- 



366 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAFvFIELD. 

dicial to the trade of England.' — Bancroft's Hldory of f.Jie United States, 
vol. iv, page 104, 

"Thanks to our independence, such apologies are no longer needed. 
Some of the rates on the textiles are exorl)itant and ought to be re- 
duced ; but the general principle which prevades the group is wise and 
beneficent, not only as a means of raising revenue, but as a measure of 
national economy. 

"In the second group I have placed the metals, including glass and 
chemicals. Though the tariff' upon this group has been severely de- 
nounced in this debate, the rate does not average more than thirty-six 
per cent, ad valorem, and the group produced about $14,000,000 of reve- 
nue last year. Besides serving as a source of public revenue, what in- 
telligent man fails to see that the metals are the basis of all the machin- 
ery, tools, and implements of every industry? More than any other in 
the world's history, this is the age when inventive genius is bending all 
its energies to devise means to increase the effectiveness of human labor. 
The mechanical wonders displayed at our Centennial Exposition are a 
sufficient illustration. 

"The people that can not make their own implements of industry 
must be content to take a very humble and subordinate jilace in the 
family of nations. The people that can not, at any time, by their own 
previous ti-aining, arm and equip themselves for war, must be content to 
exist by the sufferance of others. 

"I do not say that no rates in this group are too high. Some 
of them can safely be reduced. But I do say these industries 
could not have attained their present success without the national 
care; and to abandon them now will prevent their continued pros- 
perity. 

"In the third group I ])lace wines, spirits, and tobacco in its various 
forms which come from abroad. On these, rates of duty range from 
eighty-five to ninety-five per cent, ad valorem; and from them we col- 
lected last year SlO.000,000 of revenue. The wisdom of this tax will 
luiidly be disputed by any one. 

"In the fourth group I have placed imported provisions which come in 
competition with the products of our own fields and herds, including 
breadstuflTs, salt, rice, sugar, molasses, and spices. On these provisions 
imported into this country we collected last year a revenue of $42,000,000, 
837,000,000 of which was collected on sugar. Of tiie duty on the 



GEEAT QUESTIONS AND GREAT ANSAVERS. 307 

principal article of this group I shall speak further ou iu the 
discussion. 

"On the fifth group, comprising lesither and manufactures of leather, 
we received about So, 000, 000 of revenue. 

"On the imports included in the five groups I have mentioned, which 
comprise the great manufacturing industries of the country, we collect 
$119,000,000 — more than ninety per cent, of all our customs revenue. 
I ask if it be not an object of the highest national importance to keep 
alive and in vigorous health and growth the industries included in these 
groups ? What sort of people should we be if we did not keep them 
alive? Suppose we were to follow the advice of the distinguished gen- 
tleman from Virginia [Mr. Tucker] when he said : 

• " 'Why should me make pig-iron when with Berkshire pigs raised 
upon our farms we can buy more iron pigs from England than we can 
get by trying to make them ourselves?. We can get more ii-on pigs from 
England for Berkshire pigs than we can from the Pennsylvania manu- 
facturers. Why, then, should I not be 2)ermitted to send there for 
them? ... 

" 'What a market for our raw material, for our products, if Ave only 
would take the hand which Great Britain extends to us for free- trade 
between us ! ' 

" For a single season, perhaps, his plan might be profitable to the 
consumers of iron , but if his policy were adopted as a permanent one, 
it would reduce us to a merely agricultural })eople, whose chief business 
would be to produce the simplest raw materials by the least skill and 
culture, and let the men of brains of other countries do our thinking for 
us, and provide for us all products requiring the cunning hand of the 
artisan, while we would be compelled to do the drudgery for ourselves 
and for them. 

"The gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Tucker] is too good a logician not 
to see that the theory he advocates can only be realized in a state of uni- 
versal peace and brotherhood among the nations ; and, in developing his 
plan, he says : 

"'Commerce, Mr. Chairman, links all mankind in one common 
brotherhood of mutual dependence and interests, and thus creates that 
unity of our race which makes the resources of all the property of each 
and every member. We can not if we would, and should not if we 
could, remain isolated and alone. Men under the benign influeiwie of 



368 . LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

Christianity yearn for intercourse, for the interchange of thought and 
the products of thought as a means of a common progress toward a 
nobler civilization 

"'Mr. Chairman, I can not believe this is according to the Divine 
plan. Christianity bids us seek, in communion with our brethren of every 
race and clime, the blessings they can afford us, and to bestow in return 
upon them those with which our new continent is destined to fill the 
world.' 

"This, I admit, is a grand conception, a beautiful vision of the time 
when all the nations shall dwell in peace ; when all will be, as it were, one 
nation, each furnishing to the others what they can not profitably pro- 
duce, and all working harmoniously together in the millennium of peace. 
If all the kingdoms of the world should become the kingdom of the Prince 
of Peace, then I admit that universal free-trade ought to prevail. But 
that blessed era is yet too remote to be made the basis of the practical 
legislation of to-day. We are not yet members of the 'parliament of 
man, the federation of the world.' For the present, the world is divided 
into separate nationalities; and that other divine command still applies 
to our situation : ' He that provideth not for his own household has de- 
nied the faith, and is worse than an infidel;' and, until that better era 
arrives, patriotism must supply the place of universal brotherhood. 

" For the present Gortschakoff* can do more good to the world by tak- 
ing care of Russia. The great Bismarck can accomplish more for his 
era by being, as he is, a German to the core, and promoting the welfare 
of the German Empire. Let Beacon sfield , take care of England, and 
McMahon of France, and let Americans devote themselves to the wel- 
fare of America. When each does his best for his own nation to pro- 
mote prosperity, justice, and peace, all will have done more for the world 
than if all had attempted to be cosmopolitans ratlier than patriots. [Ap- 
plause.] 

" But I wish to say, Mr. Chairman, that I have no sympathy with 
those who approach this question only from the standpoint of their own 
local, selfish interest. When a man comes to me and says, ' Put a pro- 
hibitory duty on the foreign article which competes with my product, that 
I may get rich more rapidly,' he does not excite my sympathy; he re- 
pels me ; and when another says, ' Give no protection to the manufac- 
turing industries, for I am not a manufacturer and do not care to have 
them sustained,' I say that he, too, is equally mercenary and unpatriotic. 



GREAT QUESTIONS AND GREAT ANSWERS. 369 

If we were to legislate in that spirit, I might turn to the gentleman from 
Chicago and say, ' Do not ask me to vote for an appropriation to ])uild 
a court-house or a post-office in your city; I never expect to get any 
letters from that office, and the people of my district never expect to 
be in your courts.' If we were to act in this spirit of narrow isolation 
we should be unfit for the national positions we occupy. 

" Too much of our tariff discussions have been warped by narrow and 
sectional consideraticms. But when we base our action upon the con- 
ceded national importance of the great industi'ies I have referred to, 
when we recognize the fact that artizans and their products are essential 
to the well-being of our country, it follows that there is no dweller in the 
humblest cottage on our remotest frontier who has not h deep personal 
interest in the legislation that shall promote these great national indus- 
tries. Those arts that enable our nation to rise in the scale of civiliza- 
tion bring their blessings to all, and patriotic citizens will cheerfully bear 
a fair share of the burden necessary to make their country great and self- 
sustaining. I will defend a tariff that is national in its aims, that pro- 
tects and sustains those interests without which the nation can not be- 
come great and self-sustaining. 

"So important, in my view, is the ability of the nation to manufac- 
ture all these articles necessary to arm, equip, and clothe our people, 
that if it could not be secured in any other way I would vote to pay 
money out of the Federal Treasury to maintain government iron and 
steel, woolen and cotton mills, at whatever cost. Wei-e we to neglect 
these great interests and depend upon other nations, in what a condition 
of helplessness would we find ourselves when we should be again involved 
in war with the very nations on whom we were depending to furnish us 
these supplies? The system adopted by our fe,thers is wiser, for it so en- 
courages the great national industries as to make it possible at all times 
for our people to equip themselves for w^ar, and at the same time increase 
their intelligence and skill so as to make them better fitted for all the 
duties of citizenship both in war and in peace. We provide for the com- 
mon defense by a system which promotes the general welfare. 

" I have tried thus summarily to state the grounds on which a tariff 
which produces the necessary revenue and at the same time promotes 
American manufactures, can be sustained by large-minded men, for na- 
tional reasons. How high the rates of such a tariflT ought to be is a 
question on which there may fairly be differences of opinion. 
•24 



•370 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

"Fortunately or unfortunately, on this question I have long occupied 
a position between two extremes of opinion. I have long believed, and 
I still believe, that the worst evil which has afflicted the interests of the 
American artisans and manufacturers has been the tendency to extremes 
in our tariff legislation. Our history for the last fifty years has been a 
repetition of the same mistake. One party comes into power, and believing 
that a protective tariff is a good thing establishes a fair rate of duty. 
Not content with that, they say: 'This works well, let us have more of 
it,' ami they raise the rates still higher, and perhajjs go beyond *he lim- 
its of national interest. 

"Every additional step in that direction increases the opposition and 
threatens the stability of the whole system. When the policy of increase 
is pushed beyond a certain point, the popular reaction sets in ; the oppo- 
site party gets into power and cuts down the high rates. Not content 
with reducing the rates that are unreasonable, they attack and destroy 
the whole protective system. Then follows a deficit in the Treasury, the 
destruction of manufacturing interests, until the reactic^n again sets in, 
the free-traders are overthrown, and a protective system is again estab- 
lished. In not less than four distinct periods during the last fifty years 
has this sort of revolution taken place in our industrial system. Our 
great national industries have thus been tossed up and down between 
two extremes of opinion. 

"During my term of service in this House I have resisted the effort 
to increase the rates of duty whenever I thought an increase would be 
dangerous to the stability of our manufacturing interests; and by doing 
so, I have sometimes been thought unfriendly to the policy of protecting 
American industry. Wiien the necessity of the revenues and the safety 
of our manufactures Avarranled, I have favored a reduction of rates; and 
these reductions have aided to preserve the stability of the system. In 
one year, soon after the close of the war, we raised §212,000,000 of rev- 
enue from customs. 

"In 1870 we reduced the custom duties by the sum of twenty-nine 
and one-half millions of dollars. In 1872 tliey were again reduced by 
the sum of forty-four and one half millions. Those reductions were in 
the main wise and judicious; and although I did not vote for them all, 
yet they have put the fair-minded men of this country in a position 
where they can justly resist any considerable reduction below the present 
rates. 



GKEAT QUESTIONS AND GREAT ANSWERS. 37? 

"My view of the clanger of extreme positions on the questions of tariff 
rates may be illustrated by a remark made by Horace Greeley in the last 
conversation I ever had with that distinguished man. Said he: 

" ' My criticism of you is that you are not sufficiently high protective 
in your views.' 

" I replied : 

" ' What would you advise?' 

" He said : 

" ' If I had my way — if I were king of this country — I would put a 
duty of SlOO a ton on pig-iron and a proportionate duty on every thing 
else that can be produced in America. The result would be that our 
peoJ)le would be obliged to supply their own wants ; manufactures would 
spring up; competition would finally reduce prices; and we should live 
wholly within ourselves.' 

"I replied that the fatal objection to his theory was that no man is 
king of this country, with power to make his policy permanent. But as 
all our policies depend upon popular support, the extreme measure pro- 
posed would beget an opposite extreme, and our industries would suffer 
from violent reactions. For this I'eason I believe that we ought to seek 
that point of stable equilibrium somewhere between a prohibitory tariff 
on the one hand, and a tariff that gives no protection on the other. 
What is that point of stable equilibrium? In my judgment it is this: a 
rate so high that foreign producers can not flood our markets and break 
down our home manufiicturers, but not so high as to keep them altogether 
out, enabling our manufacturers to combine and raise the prices, nor so 
high as to stimulate an unnatural and unhealthy growth of manufactures. 

" In other words, I would have the duty so adjusted that every great 
American industry can fairly live and make fair profits; and yet so low 
that if our manufacturers attempted to put up prices unreasonably, the 
competition from abroad would come in and bi'ing down prices to a fair 
rate. Such a tai'iff I believe will be supported by the great mnjority of 
Americans. We are not far from having such a tariff in our present 
law; In some respects we have departed from that standard. Wher- 
ever it does, we should amend it, and by so doing we shall secure stabil- 
ity and prosperity. 

"This brings me to the consideration of the pending bill. It was my 
hope, at the beginning of the present session, that the Committee of Ways 
and Means would enter upon a revision of the tariff in the spirit I have 



372 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAKFIELD. 

indicated. Tlie Secretary of the Treasury suggested in his annual report 
that a con^ideral)le nunil3er of articles which pi'oduced but a small amount 
of revenue, and were not essential to the pi'osperity of our manufacturei's, 
could be placed upon the free list, thus simplifying the law and making 
it more consistent in its details. I was ready to assist in such a work of 
revision; but the committee had not gone far before it was evident 
that they intended to attack the whole system, and, as far as possible, 
destroy it. The results of their long and arduous labors are embodied in 
the pending bill. 

" Some of the I'ates can be slightly reduced Avithout serious harm ; but 
many of the reductions proposed in this bill will be fatal. It is related 
that when a surgeon was probing an emperor's wound to find the ball, 
he said : 

" 'Can your Majesty allow me to go deeper?' 

" His Majesty replied : 

" 'Probe a little deeper and you will find the Emperor.' 

"It is that little deeper probing by this bill that will touch the vital 
interests of this country and destroy them. 

"The chief charge I make against this bill is that it seeks to cripple 
the protective features of the law. It increases rates where an in- 
crease is not necessary, and it cuts them down where cutting will kill. 
One of the wisest pi'ovisions of our present law is the establishment of a 
definite free list. From year to year when it has been found that any 
article could safely be liberated from duty it has been put upon the free 
list. A large number of raw materials have thus been made free of duty. 
This has lightened the burdens of taxation, and at the same time aided 
the industries of the country. 

" To show the progress that has been made in this direction, it should 
be remembered that in 1867 the value of all articles imported free of duty 
was but §89,000,000, while in 1877 the free imports amounted to 
$181,000,000. 

"As I have already said, the Secretary of the Treasury recommends a 
still further increase of the free list. But this bill abolishes the free-list 
altogether and imposes duties upon a large share of articles now free. 
And this is done in order to make still greater reduction upon articles 
that must be protected if their manufacture is maintained in this country. 

"Let me notice a few of the great industries at which this l)ill strikes. 
In the group of textile fabrics, of which I have spoken, reductions are 



GREAT QUESTIONS AXD GREAT ANSWERS. 373 

made upon the manufactures of cottou which will stop three-quarters of 
the coitou mills of the couutry, aud hopelessly prostrate the business. 
Still greater violence is done to the wool and woolen interests. The at- 
tempt has been made to show that the business of wool-giowing has de- 
clined in consequence of our present law, and the fact has been pointed 
out that the number of sheep has been steadily falling off in the Eastern 
Suites. The truth is that sheep-culture in the United States was 
never in so healthy a condition as it is to-day. In 1860 our total avooI 
product was sixty millions of pounds. In 1877 we produced two hun- 
dred and eight millions of pounds. 

" It is true that there is not now so lax-ge a number of sheep in the 
Eastern States as there were a few years since; but the center of that in- 
dustry has been shifted. Of the thirty-five and a half millions of sheep now 
in the United States, fourteen and a half millions are in Texas and the 
States and Teriitories west of the Exjcky Mountains. California alone 
has six and a half millions of sheep. Not the least important feature of 
this interest is the facility it offers for cheap animal food. A great French 
statesman has said: 'It is more important to provide food than clothing,' 
and the growth of sheep accomplishes both objects. Ninety-five per cent. 
of all the woolen fabrics manufactured in this country are now made of 
native wool. 

" The tariff on wools and woolens was adopted in 1867, after a most 
carefid and thorough examination of both the producing and manufactur- 
ing interests. It was the result of an adjustment between the farmers 
and manufacturers, and has been advantageous to both. A small reduc- 
tion of the rates could be made without injury. 

"Both of these interests consented to a reduction, and submitted their 
plan to the Committee of Ways and Means. But instead of adopting it, 
the committee have struck those interests down, and put a dead level ad 
valorem duty upon all wools. The chairman tells us that the committee 
had sought to do away with the ad valorem system, because it gave rise 
to fraudulent invoices and undervaluation. Yet on the interest that 
yields twenty millions of revenue, he proposes to strike down the specific 
duties and put the intei-est u^wn one dead level of ad valorem duty with- 
out regard to quality. 

"I would not introduce sectional topics in this discussion, but I must 
notice one curious feature of this bill. In the great group of provis- 
ions, on which nearly fifty millions of revenue are paid into the Treas- 



3 . 4 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

ury, I fiud that thirty-.seven millions of that amount come from imported 
sugar. No one would defend the levying of so heavy a tax upon a nec- 
essary article of food were it not that a great agricultural interest is 
therel)y protected, and that interest is mainly confined to. the State of 
Louisiana. I am glad tliat the Government has given its aid to the 
State, for not a pound of sugar could be manufactured there if the tariff 
law did not protect it. 

"As the law now stands, the average ad valorem duty on sugar is 
sixty-two and one-half per cent. But what has this bill done? The 
complaint is made by its advocates that the rates are now too high. The 
rates on all dutiable articles average about forty-two per cent. ; yet on 
sugar the average is sixty-two and one-half per cent., greatly above the 
average. This bill puts up the average duty on sugar to about seventy 
per cent. This one inteiest, which is already protected by a duty much 
higher than the average, is granted a still higher rate, while other inter- 
ests, now far below the average rate, are put still lower. Metals, that 
now average but thirty-six per cent, ad valorem, far less than the general 
average — but little more than half of the rate on sugar — are cut down 
still more, while the protection of the sugar interest is made still higher. 

"If the planters of Louisiana were to get the benefit there would he 
some excuse for the increase; but what is the fact? One thousand four 
hundred and fifteen million pounds of sugar were imported into this 
country last year, but not one pound of refined sugar ; every pound was 
imported in the crude form, going into the hands of about twenty-five 
gentlemen, mostly in the city of New York, who refine every pound of 
this enormous quantity of imported sugar. This bill increases the rates 
on the high grades of sugar far more than on the lowei' grades, and makes 
the importation of any finished sugar impossible. It strengthens and 
makes ab.solute the monopolv already given to the refining interest ; yet 
we are told that this is a revenue-reform tariff. 

" Before closing I wish to notice one thing which I Ix^lieve has not 
been mentioned in this debate. A few years ago we had a considerable 
premium on gold, and as our tariff duties were paid in coin, there was 
thus created an increase in the tariff* rates. In 1(S75, for instance, the 
average currency value of coin was one hundred and fourteen cents; in 
1876, one hundred and eleven cents; in 1877, one hundred and four 
cents. Now, thanks to the resumption law and the rate of our exchanges 
and credit, the premium on gold is almost down to zero, liut this fall in 



GREAT QUESTIONS AND GREAT ANSWERS. 375 

the premium has operated as a steady reduction of the tariff rates, be- 
cause the duties were paid in gold and the goods were sold in currency. 

"Now, when gentlemen say that the rates were high a few years ago, it 
should be remembered that they have been falling year by year, as the 
price of gold has been coming down. Wlien, therefore, gentlemen criti- 
cise the rates as fixed in the law of 1872, they should remember that 
the fall in the premium on gold has wrought a virtual reduction of 
fourteen per cent, in the tariff rates. 

"Mr. Chairman, the Committee of Ways and Means has done a large 
amount of work on tliis bill. But the views which have found expres- 
sion in his bill must be criticised without regard to personal considera- 
tion. A bill so radical in its character, so dangerous to our business 
prosperity, would work infinite mischief at this time, when the country 
is just recovering itself from a long period of depression and getting 
again upon solid ground, just coming up out of the wild sea of panic 
and distress which has tossed us so long. 

"Let it be remembered that twenty -two per cent, of all the laboring 
people of this country are artisans engaged in manufactures. Their cul- 
ture has been fostered by our tariff laws. It is their pursuits and the 
skill which they have developed that produced the glory of our centen- 
nial exhibition. To them the country owes the splendor of the position it 
holds before the world more than to any other equal number of our citizens. 
If this bill becomes a law% it strikes down their occupation and throws 
into the keenest distress the brightest and best elements of our popula- 
tion. 

" It is not simply a stalking-horse upon which gentlemen can leap to show 
their horsemanship in debate ; it is not an innocent lay -figure upon which 
gentlemen may spread the gaudy wares of their rhetoric without harm; 
but it is a great, dangerous monster, a very Polyphemus which stalks 
through the land. Monstrumhorrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademp- 
tinn. If its eye be not out, let us take it out and end the agony." [Ap- 
plause on the Republican side.] 

But the .correlative of revenue is expenditure. Only one 
other man of this age ever attempted a. philosophy of national 
expenditure besides Garfield — that was Gladstone. No other 
American ever attempted to regulate appropriations by a 
philosophical principle. No other man ever attempted to re- 



376 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

duce the fabulous iind irregular outlay of the Government to a 
science. Of Gartield's studies in this direction we have spoken 
elsewhere. On January 23, 1872, upon the introduction of his 
first bill as Chairman of the Committee on Appropriations he 
delivered an elaborate speech on the subject of 

PUBLIC EXPENDITURES 

"It is difficult to discuss expenditures comprehensively witljout dis- 
cussing also the revenues ; but I shall on this occasion allude to the reve- 
nues only on a single point. Revenue and the expenditure of reveiuie 
form by far the most important element in the government of modern 
nations. Revenue is not, as some one has said, the friction of a govern- 
ment, but rather its motive power. Without it the machinery of a gov- 
ernment can not move ; and by it all the movements of a government 
are regulated. The expenditure of revenue forms the grand level from 
which all heights and depths of legislative action are measured. The in- 
crease and the diminution of the burdens of taxation depend alike u])nn 
their relation to this level of expenditures. That level once given, 4II 
other policies must conform to it and be determined by it. The expen- 
diture of revenue and its distribution, therefore, form the best test of the 
health, the wisdom, and the virtue of a government. Is a government 
corrupt? that corruption will inevitably, sooner or later, show itself at 
the door of the treasury in demands for money. There is scarcely a con- 
ceivable form of corruption or public wrong tliat does not at last present 
itself at the cashier's desk and demand money. Tiie legislature, there- 
fore, that stands at the cashier's desk and watches with its Argus eyes 
the demands for payment over the counter, is most certain to see all the 
forms of public rascality. At that place, too, we may feel the Naiion's 
pulse; we may determine whether it is in the delirium of fever or 
whether the currents of its life are flowing with the steady throbbing* of 
health. What could have torn down the gaudy fabric of the late gov- 
ernment of France so effectually as the sim{)le expedient of compiling- 
and publishing a balance sheet of the expenditures of Napoleon's govern- 
ment, as compared with the expenditures of the fifteen yeiirs wliich })re- 
ceded his reign ? A cpiiet student of finance exhibited the fact that dur- 
ing fifteen years of Napoleon's reign the expenditures of his government 
had been increased by tlie enormous total of three hundred and fifty mill- 
•ion dollars in gold per annum. 



GEEAT QUESTIONS AND GREAT ANSWERS. 377 



HOW SHALL EXPENDITURES BE GAUGED 



" Such, in my view, are tlie relations which the expenditures of the 
revenue sustain to the honor and safety of the nation. How, then, shall 
ihey be regulated? By what gauge shall we determine the amount of 
revenue that ought to be expended by a nation ? This question is fidl of 
\lltiiculty, and I can hope to do little more than ofter a few suggestions 
in the direction of its solution. » 

"And, first, I remark that the mere amount of the approjiriations is 
in itself no, test. To say that this go-vernment is expending two hundred 
and ninety-tw(y million dollars a year, may be to say that we are penuri- 
ous and niggardly in our expenditures, and may be to say that Ave are 
lavish and prodigal. There must be some ground of relative judgment, 
some test by which we can determine whether expenditures are reasona- 
ble or exorbitant. It has occurred to me that two tests can be applied. 

TEST OF POPULATION. 

"The first and most important is the relation of expenditure to the 
population. In some ratio corresponding to the increase of population it 
may be reasonable to increase the expenditures of a government. This 
is the test usually applied in Europe. In an official table I have before 
me the expenditures of the British government for the last fifteen years, 
I find the statement made over against the annual average of each year 
of the expenditure per capita of the population. The average expenditure 
per capita for that period, was two pounds, seven shillings and seven pence, 
or about twelve doUai's in gold, with a slight tendency to decrease each 
year. In our own ct;)untry, commencing with 1830 and taking the years 
when the census was taken, I find that the expenditures, per capita, ex- 
clusive of payments on tlie principal and interest of the public debt were 
as follows : 

In 1830 81 Oo 

In 1840 1 41 

In 1850 1 00 

In 1860 1 t'l 

In 1870 4 20 

or, excluding pensions, three dollars and fifty-two cents. No doubt this 
lest is valuable. But how shall it be applied ? Shall the inci-ease of ex- 
penditures keep pace with the population? We know that population 
tends to increase in a geometrical ratio, that is, at a per cent, compounded 



378 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD 

annually. If the normal increase of expenditures follow the same law, 
we mi'ht look forward to the future with alarm. It is manifest, how- 
ever, that the necessity of expenditures does not keep pace with the mere 
increase of numbers; and while the total sum of money expended must 
necessarily be greater from year to year, the amount j^er capita ought in 
all well-regulated governments in time of peace to grow gradually less. 

TEST OF TERRITORIAL SETTLEMENT AND EXPANSION. 

"But in a country like ours there is another element besides popula- 
tion that helps to determine the movement of expenditures. That ele- 
ment can hardly be found iii any other country. It. is the increase and 
settlement of our territory, the organic increase of the nation by the ad- 
dition of new States. To begin with the original thirteen States, and 
gauge expenditure till now by the increase of population alone, would be 
manifestly incorrect. But the fact that there have been added twenty- 
four States, and that we now have nine territories, not including Alaska, 
brings a new and important element into the calculation. It is impos- 
sible to estimate the eifect of this element upon expenditures. But if we 
examine our own records from the beginning of the Government, it will 
appear that every great increase of settled territory has very considerably 
added to the expenditures. 

" If these reflections be just, it will follow that the ordinary movement 
of our expenditures depends upon the action of two forces: first, the 
natural growth of population, and second, the extension of our territory 
and the increase in the number of our States. Some day, no doubt — 
and I hope at no distant day — we shall have reached the limit of terri- 
torial expansion. I hope we have reached it now, except to enlarge the 
number of States within our borders; and when we have settled our un- 
()ccui)ied lands, when we have laid down the fixed and certain bounda- 
ries of our country, then the movement of our expenditure in time of 
peace will be remitted to the operation of the one law, the increase of 
population. That law, as I have already intimated, is not an increase 
l)y a per cent, compounded annually, but by a per cent, that decreases 
annually. No doubt the expenditures will always increase from year to 
year ; but they ought not to increase by the same per cent, from year to 
year ; the rate of increase ought gradually to grow less. 

EXPENDITURES OF ENGLAND. 

"In Enghind, fir example, whore the territory is fixed, and they are 



GREAT QUESTIONS a:XD GEEAT ANSWERS. 379 

remitted to the single law of increase of population, the increase of ex- 
penditure during the last fifteen years of peace has been only about one 
and three-quarter per cent, compounded annually. I believe nobody has 
made a very careful estimate of the rate in our country; our growth has 
lieen too irregular to afford data for an accui'ate estimate. But a gen- 
tleman who has given much attention to the subject expressed to me the 
belief tliat our expenditures in time of peace have increased about eight 
per cent, compounded annually. I can hardly believe it; yet I am sure 
tliat somewhere between that and the English rate will be found our rate 
of increase in times of peace. I am aware that such estimates as these 
are unsatisfactory, and that nothing short of the actual test of experience 
can determine the movements of our exi^enditures ; but these suggestiojis 
which have resulted from some study of the subject, I ofier for the reflec- 
tion of those who care to follow them out. 

effec:ts of wapv on expenditures. 

" Thus far I have considered the expenditures that arise in times of 
peace. Any view of this subject would be incomplete that did not in- 
clude a consideration of the effect of Avar upon national expenditures. I 
have spoken of what the rate ought to be in time of peace, for carrying 
•on a government. I will next consider the effect of war on the rate of 
increase. And here we are confronted with that anarchic element, the 
plague of nations, which Jei-emy Bentham called ' mischief on the largest 
scale.' After the fire and blood of the battle-fields have disapi^eared, no- 
where does war show its destroying power so certainly and so relentlesslv 
as in the columns which represent the taxes and expenditures of the na- 
tion. Let me illustrate this by tAvo examj)les. 

"In 1792, the year preceding the commencement of the great war 
against Napoleon, the expenditures of Great Britain were less than 
twenty million pounds sterling. 

"During the twenty-four years that elapsed, from the commencement 
of that Avonderful struggle imtil its close at Waterloo, in 1815, the ex- 
penditures rose by successive bounds, until, in one year near the close of 
the war, it reached the enormous sum of one hundred and six million 
seven hundrd and fifty thousand pounds. 

"The unusual increase of the public debt, added to the natural growth 
of expenditures from causes already discussed, made it impossible for 
England ever to reach her old leA'el of expenditure. It took twenty 
years after AVatei-loo to reduce expenditures from seventy-seven million 



3S0 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFJELD. 

seven buudred and fifty thousi\nd pounds, the annual average of the 
second decade of the century, to forty-five million seven hundred and 
fifty thousand pounds, the expenditure for I800. 

'•This last figure ^Yas the lowest England has known during the pres- 
ent century. Then followed nearly forty years of j>eaee, from Waterloo 
to the Crimean war in 1854. The figures for that period may be taken 
to represent the natural growth of expenditures in England During that 
period the expenditures increased, in a tolerably uniform ratio, from forty- 
five million seven hundred and fifty thousand poimds, the amount" for 
1835, to about fifty-one million seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds, 
the average for the five years ending 1853-54. This increase was about 
four million dollars of our money per annum. Then came the Crimean 
war of 185-1—1856, during one year of which the expenditures rose to 
eighty-four million five hundred thousand pounds. 

" Ag:\in, as after the Xapoleonic war, it required several years for tl.e 
exj^nditures of the kingdom to get down to the new level of peace, 
which level was much higher than that of the former peace. 

"Durmg the last ten years the expenditures of Great Britain have 
again been gradually increasing ; the average for the six yeare ending 
with March 31, 1871, being sixty-eight million seven hundred and fifty 
thousand pounds. 

WAE EXPESTJITURES OF THE UXITED STATES. 

'• As the second example of the effect of war on the movement of na- 
tional expenditures, I call attention to om* own history. 

" Ctjnsideriug tbe ordinary expenses of the Government, exclusive of 
jxivments on the principal and interest of the pubUc debt, the annual 
average may be stated thus : 

'• Beginning with 1791, the last decade of the eighteenth century 
showe<l an annual average of three million seven hundred and fifty thou- 
sand dollars. During the first decade of the present century, the average 
was nearly five million five hundred thousand dollars. Or, commencing 
with 1791, there followed twenti' years of peace, during which the an- 
nua) average of ordinary expenditures was more than doubled. Then 
followed four years, from 1812 to 1815, inclusive, in which the war with 
England swelled the average to twenty-five million five hundred thousand 
dollars. During the five years succeeding that war, the average was six- 
teen million five hundred thousand dollars, and it was not until 1821 that 
the new level of peace was reached. During the five years, from 1820 to 



GKEAT QUESTIO^'S AXD GEEAT ANSWERS. 381 

l<y2o, inclusive, the auiiual average was eleven million five hundred thou- 
sand dollars. From 1825 to 1830, it was thirteen million dollars. 
Fr(jm 1830 to 1835, it was seventeen million dollars. From 1835 
to 1840, in which period occurred the Seminole war, it was thirty 
million five hundred thousand dollars. From 1840 to 1845, it wjis 
twenty-seven million dollars. From 1845 to 1850, during which occun-ed 
the Mexican war, it was forty million five hundred thousand dollar?. 
From 1850 to 1855, it Avas forty-seven million five himdred thousand 
dollars. From 1855 to June 30, 1861, it was sixty-seven million dol- 
lars. From June 30, 1861, to June 30, 1866, seven hundred and thir- 
teen million seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars ; and from June 
30, 1866, to June 30, 1871, the annual average was one hundred and 
eighty-nine million dollars. 

"It is interesting to inquire how far we may reasonably expect to go 
in the descending scale before we reach the new level of peace. We 
have already seen that it took England twenty years after Waterloo te- 
fore she reached such a level. Our own experience has l^een peculiar in 
this, that our people have been impatient of debt, and have always de- 
terminedly set about the work of reducing it. 

DURATION OF WAR EXPENDITURES. 

• Througliout our history there may be seen a curious uniformity in 
the movement of the annual expenditures for the years immediately fol- 
lowing a war. We have not the data to determine how long it was, after 
the war of independence, Ijefore the expenditures ceased to decrease; 
that is, before they reached tlie point where their natural growth more 
than balanced the tendency to reduction of war expenditure ; but in the 
years immediately following all our subsequent wars, the decrease has 
continued for a period almost exactly twice the length of the war itself. 

"After the war of 1812-15, the expenditures continued to decline fur 
eight years, reaching the lowest point in 1823. 

"After the Seminole war, which ran through three years, 1836. 1837. 
and 1838. the new level was not reached until 1844, six years after its 
close. 

" After the Mexican war, which lasted two years, it took four years, 
until 1852, to reach the new level of peace." 

Probably the most remarkable portion of this speech is the fol- 
lowing prophecv: 



ob'I LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

WHEN SHALL AVE REACH OUR NEW LEVEL OF EXPENDITURES? 

"It is, perhaps, unsafe to base our calculations for the future on these 
analogies; but the wars already referred to have been of such varied 
character, and their financial effects have been so uniform, as to make if 
not unreasonable to expect that a similar result will follow our late war. 
If so, the decrease of our ordinary expenditures, exclusive of the principal 
and interest of the public debt, will continue until 1875 or 1876. 

"It will be seen by an analysis of our expenditures, that, exclusive of 
charges on the public debt, nearly fifty million dollars are expenditures 
directly for the late war. Many of these expenditures will not again 
appear, such as the bounty and back pay of volunteer soldiers, and pay- 
ment of illegal captures of British vessels and cargoes. We may reas(ni- 
ably expect that the expenditures for pensions will hereafter steadily 
decrease, unless our legislation should be unwarrantably extravagant. 
We may also expect a large decrease in expenditures for the internal 
revenue department. Possibly, we may ultimately be able to abolish the 
department altogether. In the accounting and disbursing bureaus of the 
treasury department, we may also expect a further reduction of the force 
now employed in settling war claims. 

" We can not expect so rapid a reduction of the public debt and its 
burden of interest as we have witnessed for the last three years; but 
the reduction will doubtless continue, and the burden of interest will con- 
stantly decrease. I know it is not safe to attempt to forecast the future ; 
but I venture to express the belief that if peace continues, the year 1876 
will witness our ordinary expenditures reduced to one hundred and 
twenty-five million dollars, and the interest on our public debt to ninety- 
five million dollars ; making our total expenditures, exclusive of payment 
on the principal of the public debt, two hundred and thirty million 
dollars. Judging from our own experience an<l from that of other 
nations, we may not hope thereafter to reach a lower figure. In making 
this estimate, I have assumed that there will be a considerable reduction 
of the burdens of taxation ; and a revenue not nearly so great in excess 
of the expenditures as we now collect." 

Seven years afterwards, in the June number (1879) of the North 
American Review, General Garfield quoted the above paragraphs 
from the speech of January, 1872, and called attention to the ful- 
fillment of his prediction in the following words: 



GKEAT QUESTIONS AND GREAT ANSWERS. 



183 



" Reviewing the subject in the liglit of subsequent experience, it will 
be seen that tlie progi-ess of reduction of expenditures from the war level 
has been very nearly in accordance with these expectations of seven years 
ago. 

"The actual expen(litures since the war, including interest on the 
public debt, as shown by the official record, were as follows: 



1865 $1,297,555,224 41 

18()6 520,899,416 99 

18G7 357,542,675 16 

1SG8 377,340,284 86 

18(ii' 322,865,277 80 

1870 399,653,560 75 

1-871 292,177,188 25 



1872 §277,517,962 67 

1873 290,345,245 33 

1874 287,133,873 17 

1875 274,623.392 84 

1876 258,459,797 33 

1877 238,660,008 93 

1878 236,964,326 80 



" Omitting the first of these years, in which the enormous pavments to 
tlie army swelled the aggregate of expenses to 81,297,000,000, and begin- 
ning with the first full year after the termination of the war, it will be 
seen that the expenditures have been reduced, at first very rapidly, and 
then more slowly, from $520,000,000 in 1866 to about §237,000,000 in 
1878. 

" The estimate quoted above was that in 1876 expenditures would be 
reduced to 8230,000,000, including 895,000,000 for interest on the pub- 
lic debt. In 1877, one year later than the estimated date, the actual 
reduction had reached 8238,000,000, including 897,000,000 for inter- 
est on the public debt. [He means the expenditures had been reduced 
to 8238,000,000.] 

" It is evident that in 1877 we had very nearly reached the limit of 
possible reduction, for the aggregate expenditures of 1878 show a reduc- 
tion below that of the preceding year of less than 82,000,000 ; and the 
expenditures, actual and estimated, for the current year ending June 30, 
1879, are 8240,000,000. It thus appears that 1878 was the turning- 
point from which, under the influence of the elements of normal growth, 
we may expect a constant, though it ought to be a small, annual increase 
of expenditures." 

If anywhere there is to be found a more scientific statesmanship 
than this, the average man know's not the place to seek it out. 
Garfield had discovered the law of the increase and decrease of 
national expenditures. It was as fixed as the laws which lengthen 
and shorten the day. Scientists agree that the laws of society are 



384 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAKFIELD. 

far more difficult of discovery and of demonstration than the laws 
of nature. Only one man in a generation makes any real advance 
in the study of those laws which pervade the affiiirs of men. In 
his philosophy of public expenditures, James A. Garfield was that 
man <^f his political generation. On March 5, 1874, in another 
s})cech on the same topic, he unfolded the philosophy and laws of 
growth of the public debt. As usual, it is an illumination of a 
vast and foggy subject. It is impossible to give, in our already 
crowded pages, even a synopsis of this address. 

There can be no question that Garfield was the most perfect 
master of the themes of revenue and expenditure in his generation. 
With the exception of the tariff, they were not questions which 
could be brought into politics. In their nature, they were so dry 
and complicated that the House itself, much less the people, knew 
but little of the enormous labor performed by General Garfield on 
the subject. He applied his immense energies to the task as 
cheerfully as if the questions were those of the next campaign, 
instead of being known only in the committee-room. His research 
would gain him no contemporary laurels, his toil bring him no 
ajiplause. But he grappled with the monster of public debt, 
which had its clutch on England's throat, and was reaching toward 
the New Republic. He who knew so well how to thrill the audi- 
ence and shake the building with plausive thunders, embodied 
the ref^ults of his work in speeches, which his friends possibly 
thought impractical and certainly tiresome. They Lie embalmed 
in the mighty mausoleum of the Congressional Record, hidden 
away from the prying eyes of mankind. Some future statesman, 
with more industry or genius than his contemporaries, will, per- 
chance, come with pick and shovel to excavate and disinter the 
buried children of the brain. If so, like the recently-discovered 
remains at Myccnse and Thebes, they will be pronounced of royal 
blood. 

Wc now pass to the last branch of the subject discussed in this 
chapter. This relates to the record of Garfield in relation to ques- 
tions concerning the General Character and Tendency op 
American Institutions. 



GlrlEAT QUESTIONS AND GEEAT ANSWERS. 385 

This question opens the door to what would make a volume of 
General Garfield's speeches. Under a rigid necessity of condensa- 
tion, we can only give broken extracts from three addresses. 

On July 2, 1873, before the students of the Western Reserve 
College, at Hudson, Ohio, he spoke on — 

THE FUTURE OF THE REPUBLIC. 

" What do men mean Avhen they predict the immortality of any thing 
eartlily? 

" The first Napoleon was one day walking through the galleries of the 
Louvre, filled with the wonders of art which he had stolen from the con- 
quered capitals of Europe. As he passed the marvelous picture of Peter 
Martyr, one of the seven masterpieces of the world, he overheard an 
enthusiastic artist exclaim: 'Immortal work!' Turning quickly upon his 
heel, the Emperor asked: 'What is the average life of an oil-painting?' 
'Five hundred years,' answered the artist. 'Immortal!' the Cnrsican 
scornfully repeated as he passed on, thinking doubtless of Austerlitz and 
IMarengo. Six years ago the wonderful picture of Peter Martyr was dis- 
solved in the flames of a burning church at Venice, and, like Austerlitz, 
ii now only a memory and a dream. 

"When the great lyric poet of Rome ventured to predict immortality 
for his works, he could think of no higher human symbol of immortality 
than the Eternal City and her institutions, crowded with seven centuries 
of glorious growth ; and so Horace declared that his verses would be 
remembered as long as the high-priest of Apollo and the silent vestal 
virgin should climb the steps of the Capitol. Fifteen centuries ago the 
sacred fires of Vesta went out, never to be rekindled. For a thousand 
years Apollo has had no shrine, no priest, no worshiper on the earth. 
The steps of the Capitol, and the temples that crowned it, live only in 
dreams, and to-day the antiquary digs and disputes among the ruins, 
and is unable to tell us where on the Capitoline hill the great citadel of 
Rome stood, 

/ " There is much in the history of dead empires to sadden and dis- 
courage our hope for the permanence of any human institution. But a 
deeper study reveals the fact that nations have perished only when their 
institutions have ceased to be serviceable to the human race; when their 
faith has become an empty form, and the destruction of the old is indispen- 
BabJe to the growth of the new. Growth is better than permanence ; and 



386 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

permanent growth is better than all. Our faith is large in time; and wt - 

"'Doubt not through the ages, an increasing purpose runs, 

And the thoughts of men are widened by the process of tlie suns.' 

"It matters little what may be the forms of national institutions, if 
the life, freedom, and growth of society are secured. To save the life 
of a nation, it is sometimes necessary to discard the old form and make 
room for the new growth; for — 

" ' Old decays but foster new creations; 
Bones and ashes feed the golden corn ; 
Fresh elixirs wander every moment 
Down the veins through which the live part feeds its child, the life unborn.' 

"There are two classes of forces whose action and reaction determiiie 
the condition of a nation — the forces of repression and expression. The 
one acts from without — limits, curbs, restrains. The other acts from 
within — expands, enlarges, propels. Constitutional forms, statutory lim- 
itations, conservative customs belong to the first. The free play of indi- 
vidual life, the ojiinion and action belong to the second. If these forces 
be happily balanced, if there be a wise conservation and correlation of 
both, a nation may enjoy the double blessing of progress and permanence. 

"How are these forces acting upon our nation at the present time? 

" Our success has been so great hitherto, we have passed safely through 
so many perils which at the time seemed almost fatal, that we may assume 
that the Republic will continue to live and prosper, unless it shall be as- 
sailed by dangers which outnumber and outweigh the elements of its 
strength. It is idle to boast of what we are, and what we are to be, 
unless at the samo time we compare our strength with the magnitude of 
our dangers. 

" What, then, are our dangers: and how can they be conquered? . . . 

" In the first place, our great dangers are not from without. We do 
not live by the con.sent of any other nation. We must look within to 
find the elements of danger. The first and most obvious of these is ter- 
ritorial exparsion — overgrowth ; the danger that we shall break in pieces 
by our own weight. This has been the commonplace of historians and 
publicists for many centuries ; and its truth has found many striking 
illustrations in the experience of mankind. But we have fair ground 
for believing that new conditions and new forces have nearly, if not 
wholly, removed the ground of this danger. Distance, estrangement, 
isolation have been overcome by the recent amazing growth in the means 



GEEAT QUESTIONS AND GREAT ANSWERS. 387 

of intercommunion. For politicul and iiidustriiil purposes, California 
And Massachusetts are nearer neighbors to-day than were Philadelphia 
and Boston in the days of the Revolution. The people of all our thirty- 
seven States know more of each other's affairs than the Verraonter knew 
of his Virginia neighbor's fifty years ago. It was distance, isolation, igno- 
rance of separate parts that broke the cohesive force of the great em- 
pires of antiquity. Public affairs are now more public, and private less 
private, than in former ages. The Railroad, the Telegraph, and the 
Press, have virtually brought our citizens, with their opinions and indus- 
tries, face to face ; and they live almost in each other's sight. The 
leading political, social, and industrial events of this day Avill be re- 
ported and discussed at more than two millions of American breakfast- 
tables to-morrow morning. Public opinion is kept in constant exercise 
and training. It keeps itself constantly in hand — ready to approve, 
condemn, and command. It may be wrong, it may be tyrannical ; but 
it is all-pervading, and constitutes, more than ever before, a strong band 
of nationality. 

"After all, territory is but the body of a nation. The jieople who 
inhabit its hills and its valleys are its soul, its spirit, its life. In them 
dwells its hope of immortality. Among them, if anywhere, are to be 
found its chief elements of destruction." 

In the latter part of the address, he discussed Lord Macau lay's 
femous letter, in which he predicted that, with universal suffrage, 
our Republic was all sail and no ballast; that when the country 
was populated like Europe, the Government would fall in the in- 
evitable conflict between labor and capital. 

"With all my heart I repel that letter as false. My first answer is 
this: No man who has not lived among us can understand one thing 
about our institutions; no man who has been born and reared under mon- 
archical governments can understand the vast difference between theirs 
and ours. How is it in monarchical governments? Their society is one 
series of caste upon caste. Down at the bottom, like the granite rocks in 
the crust of the earth, lie the great body of laboring men. An English- 
man told me not long ago that in twenty-five years of careful study of 
the agricultural class of England, he had never known one who was 
born aTid reared in the ranks of fai-m laborers that rose above his class 
and became a well-to-do citizen. That is a most terrible sentence, that 



388 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAKFIELD. 

three millions of people should lie at the bottom of society, with no power 
to rise. Above them the gentry, the hereditary capitalist ; above them, 
the nobility; above them, the royalty; and, crowning all, the sovereign 
— all impassable barriers of caste. 

" No man born under such institutions can understand the mighty 
difi'erence between them and us in this country. Thank God, and thank 
the fiithers of the Republic who made, and the men who carried out the 
promises of the Declaration, that in this country there are no classes, 
fixed and impassable. Here society is not fixed in horizontal layers, like 
the crust of the earth, but as a great New England man said, years ago, it 
is rather like the ocean, broad, deep, grand, open, and so free in all its parts 
that every drop that mingles with the yellow sand at the bottom may 
rise through all the waters, till it gleams in the sunshine on the crest 
of the highest waves. So it is here in our free society, permeated with 
the light of American freedom. There is no American boy, however 
poor, however humble, orphan though he may be, that, if he have a clear 
head, a true heart, a strong arm, he may not rise through all the grades 
of society, and become the crown, the glory, the pillar of the State, 

"Again, in depicting the dangers of universal suffrage, Macaulay leaves 
wlioUy out of the account the great counterbalancing force of universal 
education. He contemplates the government delivered over to a vast 
multitude of ignorant, vicious men, who have learned no self-control, 
who have never comprehended the national life, and who will wield the 
ballot solely for personal and selfish ends. If this were indeed the nec- 
essary condition of Democratic communities, it would be difficult, perhaps 
impossible, to escape the logic of Macaulay's letter. And here is a real 
peril — the danger that we shall rely upon the mere extent of the suf- 
frage as a national safeguard. We can not safely, even for a moment, 
lose sight of the quality of the suflfrage, which is more important than 
its quantity. 

:;= * * ;(c * >1; ;is 

"Our faith in the Democratic principle rests upon the belief that intel- 
ligent men will see that their highest political good is in liberty, regu- 
lated by just and equal laws; and that in the distribution of political 
power it is safe to follow the maxim, 'Each for all, and all for each.' 
We confront the dangers of the sufirage by the blessings of universal ed- 
ucation." 



GEEAT QUESTIONS AND GREAT ANSWERS. 389 

We present next a brief extract from an address delivered Feb- 
ruary 11, 1879, 

ON THE RELATION OF THE GOVERNMENT TO SCIENCE. 

"What ought to be the relation of the National Government to sci- 
ence? What, if any thing, ought we to do in the way of promoting science? 
For example, if we have the power, would it be wise for Congress to ap- 
pi-opriate money out of the Treasury to employ naturalists to find out 
all that is to be known of our American birds. Ornithology is a delight- 
ful and useful study ; but would it be wise for Congress to make an ap- 
propriation for the advancement of that science ? In my judgment mani- 
lesdy not. We would thereby make one favored class of men the rivals 
of all the ornithologists who in their private way, following the bent of 
their genius, may be working out the results of science in that field. I 
have no doubt that an appropriation out of our Treasury for that pur- 
pose would be a positive injury to the advancement of science, just as 
an appropriation to establish a church would work injury to religion. 

"Genei-ally the desire of our scientific men is to be let alone to work 
in free competition with all the scientific men of the world; to develop 
their own results, and get the credit of them, each for himself; not to 
have the Government enter the lists as a rival of private enterprise. 

"As a general principle, therefore, the United States ought not to in- 
terfere in matters of science, but should leave its development to the 
free, voluntary action of our great third estate, the people themselves. 

"In this non-interterence theory of the Government I do not go to the 
extent of saying that we should do nothing for education — for j^rimary 
education. That comes under another consideration — the necessity of the 
nation to protect itself, and the consideration that it is cheaper and wiser 
to give education thau to build jails. But I am speaking now of the 
higher sciences. 

"To the general principle I have stated, there are a few obvious ex- 
ceptions which should be clearly understood when we legislate on the 
subject. In the first place the Government should aid all sorts of sci- 
entific inquiry that are necessary to the intelligent exercise of its own 
funetions- 

" For example, as we are authorized by the Constitution, and com- 
pelled by necessity, to build and maintain light-houses on our const and 
establish fog-signals, we are bound U) make all necessary scientific in- 



390 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAKFIELD. 

quiries in reference to light and its laws, sound and its laws — to do what- 
ever in the way of science is necessary to achieve the best results in 
lighting our coasts and warning our mariners of danger. So, when we 
are building iron-clads for our navy, or casting guns for our army, we 
ought to know all that is scientifically possible to be known about the 
strength of materials and the laws of mechanics which apply to such 
structures. In short, wherever in exercising any of the necessary func- 
tions of the Government, scientific inquiry is needed, let us make it to 
fhe fullest extent, and at the public expense. 

"There is another exception to the general rule of leaving science to 
the voluntary action of the people. Wherever any great popular interest, 
affecting whole classes, possibly all classes of the community, imperatively 
need scientific investigation, and private entei'prise can not accomplish it, 
we may wisely intervene and help, where the Constitution gives us 
authority. For example, in discovering the origin of yellow fever, and 
the methods 6f preventing its ravages, the nation should .do, for the 
good of all, what neither the States nor individuals can accomplish. I 
might perhaps include, in a third exception, those inquiries which, incon- 
sequence of their great magnitude and cost, can not be successfully made 
by private individuals. Outside these three classes of inquiries, the 
Government ought to keep its hands off, and leave scientific experiment 
and inquiry to the free competition of those bright, intelligent men whose 
genius leads them into the fields of research." 

Passing abruptly from valley to mountain-peak, we present the 
substance of one of the most characteristic and original speeches 
mentioned in this book. It was delivered March 29, 1879. Though 
political in its immediate object, it Avill probably be remembered 
and quoted from as long as the name of Garfield lingers on the 
lips of men. The speaker states the question belbre the House 
better than any one else could do. 

REVOLTJTIOX IN CONGRESS. 

"Let me, in the outset, state as carefully as I may, the precise situa- 
tion. At the last session, all our oidinary legislative work was done, in 
accordance with the usages of tlie House and the Senate, except as to two 
bills. Two of the twelve great apjM'opriation bills for the support of the 
Government were agreed to in both Houses as to every matter of detail 



GREAT QUESTIONS AND GREAT ANSWERS. 391 

concerning the appropriation proper. We Avere assured by the commit- 
tees of conference in both bodies that there would be no difficulty in ad- 
justing all differences in reference to the amount of money to be appro- 
priated and the objects of its appropriation. But the House of Representa- 
tives proposed three measures of distinctly independent legislation; one 
upon the Army Appropriation Bill, and two upon the Legislative Appro- 
priation Bill. The three grouped together are briefly these: first, the 
substantial modification of certain sections of the law relating to the use 
of the army; second, the repeal of the jurors' test oath ; and third, the 
r(;peal of the laws regulating elections of members of Congress. 

" These three propositions of legislation were insisted upon by the House, 
but the Senate refused to adopt them. So far it was an ordinary pro- 
ceeding, one which occurs frequently in all legislative bodies. The Sen- 
ate said to us, through their conferees : 'We are ready to pass the ap- 
propriation bills, but are unwilling to pass, as riders, the three legislative 
measures you ask us to pass.' Thereupon the House, through its confer- 
ence committee, made the following declaration. And, in order that I 
may do exact justice, I read from the speech of the distinguished Sena- 
tor from Kentucky [Mr. Beck]: 

" ' The Democratic conferees on the part of the House seem determined 
that unless those rights were secured to the people — ' 

"Alluding to the three jwints I have named — ' in the bill sent to the 
Senate they would refuse, under their constitutional right, to make ap- 
propriations to carry on the Government, if the dominant majority in the 
Senate insisted upon the jnaintenance of these laws and refused to consent 
to their appeal. 

"Then, after stating that if the position they had taken compelled an 
extra session, and that the new Congress would offer the rej^ealing bills 
separately, and forecasting what would happen when the new House 
should be under no necessity of coercing the Senate, 'he declared that — 

" 'If, however, the President of the United States, in the exercise of 
the power vested in him, should see fit to veto the bills thus presented to 
Inm, . . . then I have no doubt those same amendments will be 
again made part of the appropriation bills, and it will be for the Presi- 
dent to determine whether he will block the wheels of Government and 
refuse to accept necessary appropriations rather than allow the represen- 
tatives of the people to repeal odious laws which they regard as subver- 
sive of their rights and privileges. . . . Whether that course is 



392 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEPIEIJ). 

right or wrong, it Avill be adopted, and I have no doubt adhered to, no 
matter what happens with the appropriation bills.' 

" That was the proposition made by the Democracy in Congress at the 
close of the Congress noAv dead. 

" Another distinguished Senator [Mr, Thurman] — and I may properly 
refer to Senators of a Congress not now in existence — reviewing the situ- 
ation, declared, in still more succinct terms: 

'"We claim the right, which the House of Commons in England 
established after two centuries of contest, to say we will not grant the 
money of the people unless tliere is a redress of grievances.' 

"These propositions were repeated with various degrees of vehemence 
by the majority in the House. 

"The majority in the Senate and the minority on this floor expressed 
the deepest anxiety to avoid an extra session and to avert the catastrophe 
thus threatened — the 'stoppage of the Government. Tliey pointed out 
the danger to the country and its business interests of an extra session 
of Congress, and expressed thoir willingness to consent to any compro- 
mise consistent with their views of duty which should be offered — not in 
the way of coercion but in the way of fair adjustment — and asked to he 
met in a spirit of just accommodation on the other side. Unfortunately 
no spirit of adjustment was manifested in reply to their advances. And 
now the new Congress is assembled : and after ten days of caucus delib- 
eration, the House of Representatives has resolved, substantially, to 
reaffirm the positions of its predecessors. 

THE VOLUNTARY P0AVER8 OF* THE GOVERNMENT. 

" I had occasion, at a late hour of the last Congress, to sny something 
on what may be called the voluntary element in our institutions. I spoke 
of the distribution of the powers of Government. First, to the nation ; 
second, to the States ; and third, the reservation of power to the people 
themselves. 

" I called attention to the fact that under our form of govei-nment the 
most precious rights that men can possess on this earth are not delegated 
to the nation, nor to the States, but are reserved to the third estate — the 
people themselves. I callefl attention to the interesting fact that lately 
the chancellor of the German Empire made the declaration that it was 
the chief object of the existence of the German government to defend 
and maintain the religion of Jesus Christ — an object in reference to 



GKEAT QUESTIONS AND GKEAT ANSWEES. 393 

wliieh our Congress is absc^lutely forbidden by the Constitution to legislate 
at all. Congress can establish no religion; indeed, can make no law 
respecting it, because in the view of our fathers — the founders of our 
governnieiit — religion was too precious a right to intrust its interests by 
delegation to any body. Its maintenance was left to the voluntary action 
of the people themselves. 

" In continuation of that thought, I wish now to speak of the volun- 
tary element inside our Government — a topic that I have not often heard 
disfussed, but one which appears to me of vital importance in any com- 
prehensive view of our institutions. 

"Mr. Chairman, viewed from the stand-point of a foreigner, our 
Government may be said to be the feeblest on the earth. From our 
stand-point, and with our experience, it is the mightiest. But why would 
a f )reigner call it the feeblest? He can point out a half-dozen Avays in 
which it can be destroyed without violence. Of course, all governments 
may be overturned by the sword; but there are several ways in which 
our Government may be annihilated without the firing of a gun. 

"For example, if the people of the United States should say we will 
elect no Eepreseutatives to the House of Representatives. Of course, 
this is a violent supposition; but suppose they do not, is there any 
i-emedy ? Does our Constitution provide any remedy whatever '? In two 
years there would be no House of Representatives ; of course no support 
of the Government, and no Government. Suppose, again, the States 
should say, through their Legislatures, we will elect no Senators. Such 
abstention alone would absolutely destroy this Government; and our 
system provides no process of compulsion to prevent it, 

" Again, SHppose the two Houses were assembled in their usual order, 
and a majority of one, in this body or in the Senate should firmly band 
themselves together and say, we will vote to adjourn the moment the 
hour of meeting arrives, and continue so to vote at every session during 
our two years of existence; the Government would perish, and there is 
no provision of the Constitution to prevent it. Or again, if a majority 
of one of either body should declare that they would vote down, and did 
vote down, every bill to support the Government by appropriations, can 
you find in the whole range of our judicial or our executive authority 
any remedy whatever? A Senator, or a member of this House is free, 
and may vote 'no,' on every pro])osition, Nothing but his oath and his 
honor restrains him. Not so with the executive and judicial officers. 



394 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFTELD, 

They have no power to destroy this Government. Let them travel an 
iucli beyond" the line of the law, and they fall within the power of im- 
peachment. But, against the people who create Representatives; against 
the Legislatures who create Senators ; against Senators and Representa- 
tives in these Halls, there is no power of impeachment; there is no 
remedy, if, by abstention or by adverse votes, they refuse to support the 
Government. 

" At a first view, it would seem strange that a body of men so wise as 
our fiithers were, should have left a whole side of their fabric open to 
these deadly assaults; but on a closer view of the case their wisdom will 
appear. What was their reliance? This: The sovereign of this nation, 
the God-crowned and Heaven-anointed sovereign, in whom resides ' the 
State's collected will,' and to whom we all owe allegiance, is the people 
themselves. Inspired by love of country and by a deep sense of obliga- 
tion t.o perform every public duty ; being themselves the creators of all 
the agencies and forces to execute their own will, and choosing from 
themselves their representatives to express that will in the forms of law, 
it would have been like a suggestion of suicide to assume that any of 
these voluntary powers would be turned against the life of the Govern- 
ment. Public opinion — that great ocean of thought from whose level 
all heights and depths are measured — was trusted as a power amply able, 
and always willing, to guard all the approaches on that side of the Con- 
stitution from any assault on the life of the nation. 

" Up to this hour our sovereign has never failed us. There has never 
been such a refusal to exercise those primary functions of sovereignty as 
either to endanger or cripple the Government ; nor have the majority 
of the representatives of that sovereign in either House of Congress ever 
before announced their purpose to use their voluntary powers for its 
destruction. And now, for the first time in our history, and I will add 
fi)r the first time for at least two centuries in the history of any English 
speaking nation, it is proposed and insisted upon that these voluntary 
powers shall be used for the destruction of the Government. I want it 
distinctly understood that the proposition which I read at the beginning 
of my remarks, and which is the programme announced to the American 
people to-day, is this : that if the House can not have its own way in 
certain matters, not connected with appropriations, it will so use, or 
refrain from using, its voluntary powers as to destroy the Government. 

" Now, Mr. Chairman, it has been said on the other side that when 



GEEAT QUESTIONS AND GREAT ANSWERS. 395 

a demand for the redress of grievances is made, the autlxiity that runs 
the risk of stopping and destroying the Government, is the one that 
resists the redress. Not so. If gentlemen will do me the honor to follow 
my thought for a moment more, I trust I will make this denial good. 

FREE CONSENT THE BASIS OF OUR LAWS. 

" Oar theory of Liw is free consent. That is the granite foundation 
of our whole superstructure. Nothing in this Republic can be law 
without consent — the free consent of the House; the free consent of the 
Senate; the free consent of the Executive, or, if he refuse it, the free 
consent of two-thirds of these bodies. Will any man deny that? )Vill 
any man challenge a line of the statement that free consent is the foun- 
dation rock of all our institutions? And yet the programme announced 
two weeks ago was that if the Senate refused to consent to the demand 
of the House, the Government should stop. And the proposition was 
then, and the programme is now, that, although there is not a Senate 
to be coei-ced, there is still a third inclependent branch in the legislative 
power of the Government whose consent is to be coerced at the peril of 
the destruction of this Government; that is, if the President, in the 
discharge of his duty, shall exercise his plain constitutional right to 
refuse liis consent to this pro})osed legislation, the Congress will so use 
its voluntary powers as to destroy the Government. Tliis is the proposi- 
tion which we confront; and we denounce it as revolution. 

" It makes no difference, Mr. Chairman, what the issue is. If it 
were the simplest and most inoffensive proposition in the world, yet if 
you demand, as a matter of coercion, that it shall be adopted against 
the free consent prescribed in the Constitution, every fair-minded man in 
America is bound to resist you as much as though his own life depended 
upon his resistance. 

"Let it be understood that I am not arguing the merits of any one 
of the three amendments. I am discussing the proposed method of leg- 
islation ; and I declare that it is against the Constitution of our country. 
It is revolutionary to tlie core, and is destructive of the fundamental 
element of American liberty, the free consent of all the powers that 
unite to make laws. 

" In opening this debate, I challenge all comers to show a single 
instance in our history where this consent has been coerced. This is the 
great, the paramount issue, which d..arls all others into insignificance. 



396 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIKLD. 

Victor Hugo said, in his description of the battle of Waterloo, that the 
struggle of the two armies was like the wrestling of two giants, when a 
chip under the heel of one might determine the viet(jry. It may be that 
this amendment is the chip under your heel, or it may be that it is the 
chip on our shoulder. As a chip it is of small account to you or to us; 
but when it represents the integrity of the Constitution and is assailed 
by i-evolutiou, we fight for it as if it were a Koh-i-noor of purest water. 
[Apphvuse.] 

" The proposition now is, that after fourteen years have passed, and not 
one petition from one American citizen has come to us a?-king that this 
law be repealed ; while not one memorial has found its way to our desks 
complaining of the law, so far as I have heard, the Democratic House 
of Representatives now hold if they are not permitted to force upon 
another House and upon the Executive against their consent the repeal 
of a law that Democrats made, this refusal shall be considered a sufficient 
ground for starving this Government to death. That is the proposition 
which we denounce as revolution. [Applause on the Republican side.] 

"And here I ask the forbearance of gentlemen on the other side while 
I offer a suggestion which I make with reluctance. They will bear me 
witness that I have in many ways shown my desire that the wounds of the 
war should be healed ; that the grass that has grown green over the 
graves of both armies might symbolize the returning spring of friendship 
and peace between citizens who were lately in arms against each other. 

" But lam compelled by the necessities of the case to refer to a chapter 
of our recent history. The last act of Democratic domination in this 
Capitol, eighteen years ago, was striking and dramatic, perhaps heroic. 
Then the Democratic party said to the Republicans, ' If you elect the 
man of your choice as President of the United States we will shoot your 
G(n'ernment to death ;' and the people of this country, refusing to be 
coerced by threats or violence, voted as they pleased, and lawfully elected 
Abraham Lincoln President of the United States. 

"Then your leaders, though holding a majority in the other branch of 
C'oMgress, were heroic enough to withdraw from their seats and fling down 
the gage of mortal battle. We called it rebellion ; but we recognized it 
as coura^ieous and manly to avow your purpose, take all the risks, and 
fight it out on the open field. Notwithstanding your utmost elibils to 
destroy it, the Government was saved. 

"To-day, after eighteen years' defeat, the book of your domination is 



GREAT QUESTIONS AND GREAT ANSWERS. 307 

again opened, and your first act awakens every bitter memory, and threat- 
ens to destroy the confidence which your professions of patriotism inspired. 
You turned down a leaf of the history that recorded your last act of 
power in 1861, and you have now signalized your return to power by be- 
ginning a second chapter at the same page; not this time by a heroic 
act that declares war on the battle-field, but you i^ay if all the legislative 
powers of the Government do not consent to let you tear certain laws 
out of the statute-book, you will not shoot our Government to death as 
you tried to do in the first chapter; but you declare that if we do not 
consent against our will, if you can not coerce an independent branch 
of this Government against its will, to allow 3'ou to tear from the statute- 
liDoks some laws put there by the will of the people, you will starve the 
Government to death. [Great applause on the Republican side.] 

"Between death on the field and death by starvation, I do not know 
that the American jDeople will see any great difference. The end, if 
successfully reached, would be death in either case. Gentlemen, you 
have it in your power to kill this Government; you have it in your 
power by withhoklmg these two bills, to smite the nerve-centers of our 
Constitution with the paralysis of death ; and you have declared your 
purpose to do this, if you can not break down that fundamental element 
of free consent which, up to this hour, has always ruled in the legisla- 
tion of this Government." 

The question stated at the l)eginning of this chapter is : Was 
Garfield a Statesman ? In view of Avhat the reader has perused 
since that question w^as put, it must at this point be restated — Was 
Gai-field not a Statesman ? The burden of proof has shifted. It 
is, of course, too soon to form a complete estimate of Garfield's 
stature. We are too near to the man we loved. It will be for 
some future generation, farther removed from the spell of his 
name, and more able calmly to contemplate his life apart from the 
bloody death. This is the task for the historian of the future. 

But what we say enters into the contemporary estimate of the 
dead President's life and work. While the relative height of the 
mountain peak can only be told by viewing it from a long dis- 
tance, where the entire range pictures its upper outline on the eye, 
the people who dwell at the foot of the mountain know it as the 
highest of their neighborhood. Moreover, some of the strongest 



398 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

objections to the contemporary estimates of a pnblic man are en- 
tirely wanting in the present case. One of these is the popularity 
of his opinions or achievements. Men are apt to overestimate the 
abilities of a man who agrees with them. But time and again, on 
different questions, as in the currency and the enforcement act, the 
"Wade-Davis manifesto, and the defense of Bowles and Milligan, 
we have seen General Garfield, not merely opposing, but openly 
defying the opinions of the people who elected him. When he 
thought a thing was true, no personal consideration could affect his 
public utterance. Such a spectacle is rare indeed in American politics. 
Another reason why the present contemporary estimate of Gar- 
field is more likely than usual to pass into history is that, in a 
sense, the vindication of his policy is already accomplished. When 
Gromwell died his work was incomplete. It was only one act in 
the great drama of the struggle against kings. The result was 
unknown at the time. Other fields were to run red with j)atriot 
blood, other monarchs (o expire on the scaffold, before the solution 
of the deadly struggle should ai)j)ear. It was uncertain whether 
anv other government than monarchy was possible. No man was 
wise enough to tell, at Cromwell's death, whether he had advanced 
or retarded civilization and progress. But this is a more rapid 
age. Events hurry on quickly. The questions growing outof the 
Givil War are very largely settled already. The historic genius 
which sits in judgment upon men and institutions is no longer in 
doubt as to those questions. Similarly, too, the stupendous prob- 
lem of national finance, to which Garfield devoted such herculean 
lal)or, has reached its solution. It may be that all men are not 
willing to surrender yet, but beyond a doubi the return to a specie 
basis, and the wonderful improvement of tiie times following it, 
are in part a vindication of Garfield's statesmanship. It is the 
same with his position on the Force Bill and the Tariff'. Some 
things, however, are still incomplete. The railway problem and 
the per])etuity of American institutions the future alone can pass 
upon; l)ut these are the exception.s. The cx)mpleteness of Mr. 
Ijincoln's work at the time of his assassination was not generally, 
recognized, l>ut we see it new. So with Garfield s labors. They 



GREAT QUESTIONS AND GREAT ANSWERS. ^Di^ 

were in a sense com})lcte. We may pass judgment upon them. 
The vindication of history is already at hand. 

There is still another reason why the contemporary estimate of 
James A. Garfield is likely to become permanent. It is because 
the field of his principal achievements was not one of popular in- 
terest. It was not one which takes hold of the people's hearts, 
and sweeps the popular judgment from its moorings. It lacked 
the glamour of military fame. The present age will hand down 
to posterity the fame of mighty soldiers, but their glory must be 
viewed with some reserve, some mistrust for the present. 

Julius Csesar, who was assassinated as a tyrant, now takes his 
place at the head of all secular history. Napoleon Bonaparte, the 
mention of whose name has, for three quarters of a century, been 
enough to convulse Paris and fill every wall with placards and 
every street with barricades, is likely to become the least lovely 
figure of modern times. Garfield's chosen field of work, that where 
his fame must rest, was to the careless masses dull. Men grow 
excited over battles, but not a pulse beats higher over a computa- 
tion of interest on the public debt. The stories of marches and 
sieges thrill the reader a thousand years after every combatant has 
been vanquished by the black battalions of Death. But the most 
eloquent orator in America finds it difficult to hold an audience 
with the discussion of the tariff list or of public expenditures or 
of the currency, even when every man in the audience knows that 
his j)<)cket is touched. If such discussions are thrown into news- 
paper editorials they are but little read. No argument, however 
l)0werful, on the fallacy of fiat money ever drew a tear or roused 
a cheer. No table of the reduction of public expenditure is ever 
greeted with huzzas. When the news of a victory comes, every 
corner has a bonfire and every window an illumination. But the 
change of tiie balance of trade in our favor only awakens a quiet 
satisfaction in the merchant's heart as he glances through the morn- 
ing papers. A new kind of gun attracts world-wide attention; it 
is talked over at every breakfast-table and described in every 
paper, but a new theory of surplus and deficits in the public treas- 
ury is utterly unnoticed. We see no flushed assemblies straining 



400 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

to catch every word that flills from the orator's lips as he discusses 
the tariff on sugar or quinine. But when Kearney shouts his 
hoarse note of defiance to capital, the street is packed with list- 
ening thousands. 

Hence it is that the man who significantly whispers " Gar- 
field is overestimated" is more likely to be wrong than riglit. 
There is no tide of popular excitement over his work. The 
calm conviction of his abilities is a different thing from the fe- 
verish hurrahs of a campaign. In 1859 his old neighbors in 
his county had this conviction when they sent him to the State 
Senate. From the county, this spread to his Congressional 
district ; from the district to the State of Ohio ; from Ohio to 
the Union. It was gradual, and sure. 

Garfield's speeches must be the foundation for his fame. To 
these history will turn as a basis for its estimate. The first 
thing which is to be said of them, is that they dealt ?/;?7A the real 
problems of the epoch. That he was a great orator is true; that 
he w^as much more than this is equally true. While other men 
busied themselves with political topics Garfield took hold of 
the great non-political problems of the time. He refused to 
view them from a partisan or a personal stand-point. He grap- 
pled with the leviathans of reconstruction, tariff, and cur- 
rency in the spirit of the statesman. That he was always 
right, we are not prepared to say; that he was right in his 
views on the great questions above mentioned, that with re- 
gard to them he was a leader of leaders, seems hardly to admit 
of a doubt. He was so radical in opinion that on almost every 
question he was ahead of his party and the country. This was 
the case in his arguments on the status of the rebel States, and 
what ought to be done with them; in his arguments in favor 
of a reduction of the tarifi' as prices declined after the war, and 
in his discussion of the currency and banking problems. Yet 
so nearly right was he that in every one of these instances 
('ongress and the country gradually moved up to and occu- 
pied the position which he had taken in advance of them. 

On the other hand, he was so conservative in practice that 



GREAT QUESTIONS AND GREAT ANSWERS. 401 

on no question was he ever an extremist. Wliile he was a 
strong believer in the nationality of the Ropn])lic, and its pow- 
ers of self-preservation, he faced the entire North in his oppo- 
sition to the provisions of the "Force Bill," for the suspension 
of the writ of habMs cnrpufi and the declaration of martial 
law in a country bleeding at every wound from war. hut in a 
state of peace. Let no reader omit his speech of April 4, 1871. 
We say it the more willingly because at the time we thought 
Garfield was wrong. While he was a protectionist, lie believed 
in a tarift' which avoided both extremes. While he was an 
original and unintermittent hard-money man, he believed in 
the necessity of an elastic volume of currency. As the end of 
resumption forbade inflation, he demanded that every part 
of the country should have its share of banks, and the drafts 
and checks which they threw into the circulation. 

At the variety as well as the quantity of his work, men will 
not soon cease to wonder. There were few who could equal 
him in the discussion of any one of the great topics of the day, 
much less all of them. His name and fame can never be iden- 
tified with any single question or measure, for he displayed the 
same ability on every subject alike. 

In other respects he also differed from the men around him. 
He was a scholar in the broadest sense. His speeches are abso- 
lutely unequaled anywhere for their scientific method. In their 
philosophical discussions they were the product of the ripest 
scholarship; in their practical suggestions and argnmenta, they 
were, they are the product of the highest statesmanship. 

Finally, a man of more spotless honor and loftier integrity 
never trod tlie earth than James A. Garfield. He lived in an 
atmosphere of purity and unselfishness, which, to the average 
man, is an unknown realm. After all, there are men enough 
with intellect in politics, but too few with character. An es- 
timate of Garfield would be incomplete which' failed to include 
the inflexible honesty of the great orator and legislntoi-, 
whether in affairs public or private. History shows that while 
no institutions ever decayed because of the intellectual weak- 
20 



402 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

nessofthe people among which the}- flonrishod, empire after 
empire has perished from the face of the eartli through the 
decay of morals in its people and ith public men. History 
repeats itself. What has been, will be. Name after name of 
the great men of the new Republic is stained with private im- 
morality and public crime. The noblest part of Garfield, with 
all his genius, was h'is spotless character. There was, there is^ 
no greater, purer, manlier man. 

"His tongue was framed to music, 
His hand was armed with skill, 
His face was the mold of beauty, 
And his heart the throne of will." 



THE CLIMAX OF ISSO.— POLITICAL PARTIES. 403 



CHAPTER X. 

THE CLIMAX OF 1880. 

The Clans are met in the prairied West, 

And tlie battle is on, is on a.sain, 

Tlie struggle of great and little men, 
To make one victor above the rest. 

THE fathers of the Roiuildic liad no suspicion of the rOi.;:: 
which American politics has assumed. The thinp; wliich 
we know as a political party is new ui\der the sun. Xo 
other country or age ever had any thing like what America 
understands by the word party. When we speak of a party, 
we do not have in mind a mere sect, or class, distinguished 
b}^ peculiar opinions, and composed of individuals whose only 
bond of union is their harmony of opinion, passion, or preju- 
dice. "We do not mean a caste, nor a peculiar section of 
American society, nor a portion of the masses, whose birth, 
condition, and surroundings predestine them co take a tradi- 
tional sort of a view of' political affairs, which they hold in 
common with their parents and their fellows. This was what 
Rome, in the days of her Republic, understood by the name 
of party. Patrician and plebeian stood not merely for opinion, 
but for more — for birth, heritage, and station. A\nien there 
was an election, it was a rout, a rabble, without organiza- 
tion, work, or object. Rich and poor were arrayed against 
each other; the public offices were the glittering prize. But 
they were captured more by seditions, revolts, coiqjs d'etat, 
than by the insinuating arts of the wire-puller. The same 
thing is laro:ely true of Eno-land and France, althouo-h less so 
lately than formerly. 

But in America by a political part}', we mean an organism, 
of which the life is, in the beginning at least, an opinion or 
set of opinions. We mean an institution as perfectly organ- 
ized as the government itself; and taking hold of the people 
much more intimately. We mean an organizrtion so power 



404 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

ful that the government is in its hands but a toy; so des- 
potic that it has but one penalty for treason — political death ; 
so much beloved, that while a few men in a few widely sep- 
arated generations make glorious iand awful sacrifices for 
their country, nearly all the men of every generation lend 
themselves, heart and soul, to the cause of party. A political 
party raises, once in four years, drilled armies, more numer- 
ous than any war ever called forth. If the battalions Avear 
no uniform but red shirt and cap, and carry no more deadly 
weapon than the flaming torch, they are, nevertheless, as 
n-umerous, as well drilled, and as powerful as the glistening 
ranks of Gettysburg or Chickamauga. They, too, fight for 
tlie government — or against it. A political party has its 
official chief, its national legislature or "committee," its state, 
county, township, ward, and precinct organizations. It is 
stupendous. The local organization has in its secret rooms 
lists containing the name of every voter, with an analysis of 
his political views ; if they are wavering, a few significant 
remarks on how he can be "reached." The county and state 
organizations have their treasuries, their system of taxation 
and revenue, their fields of expenditure, and their cries of rob- 
bery, reform, and retrenchment. In the secret committee 
rooms are laid deep and sagacious plans for carrying the elec- 
tion. In some States, the old, crude ways of sedition, driving 
away of voters, and stuffing the poll are still followed; but 
in most of the States ])revail arts and methods so mysterious, 
so secret, that none but the expert politician knows what 
they are. 

A political party has other than financial resources. It owns 
newspapers — manufacturers of public sentiment. It makes the 
men that make it. It controls offices, and places of trust and 
profit. It has all the powers of centralization. One man in 
a State is at the head of the organism. He is an autocrat, 
a czar, a sultan. At the crack of his finger the political 
head of his grand vizier falls under the headsman's ax. The 
party has in its service the most plausible writers, the most 



THE CLIMAX (JE 1880.— rOLITICAL PARTIES. 40o 

eloquent orators, tlie most ingenious statisticians, and the 
most graphic artists. In its service are all the brilliant and 
historic names and reputations. Military glory, statesman- 
ship, dijilomacy, are alike appropriated to itself. Wealth, 
genius, love, and l^eauty, alike lay their treasures at its 
feet. 

A party as well as the nation has its laws. Its delegates 
and committeemen are as certain to he elected, and tliose 
elections are required to occur at times and i>hices as defi- 
nitely settled by party rule as those for Congressmen or 
President. 

The thing which we have been describing did not begin 
with the Kepublic. It is substantially a grow^th of the hist 
fifty years. Its beginning was marked by the rise of the 
convention, its most public aud prominent feature. Formerly-, 
congressional and legislative caucuses uominated the candi- 
dates for office. But about 1831 a cliange begau to come 
about. When the first severe cold of winter begins, every 
floating straw or particle of dust on the surface of a pond 
becomes the center of a crystallization around itself. Tiie 
distances between the nearer and snudler, then the more iso- 
lated and larger, centers, are gradually bridged until the icy 
floor is built. So in the rise of party organism in the Ke- 
public. The local organizations, the town clubs, the township 
conventions for thr- nomination of trustee and road master, 
became the initial centers of a process of crystallization which 
was to go on until the icy floor of party organization and 
platforms covered the thousand little waves and ripples of 
individual opinions from shore to shore. 

The delegate and the coiWention, the permanent committee 
and the caucus, became the methods by which the organiza- 
tion grew. Stronger and stronger have they grown, twining 
rliemselves like monster vines around the central trunk of the 
Republic. Every Presidential election has doubled the power, 
unity, centralization and resources of the monsters. The sur- 
l)lus genius and energy of the American ,peo})le for organiz- 



40G LIFE OF JA:\IES a. GARFIELD. 

ing, being micxhaiistccl and unsatisfied by the simple forms of 
the Republic, has spent itself in the political party. 

With the rise of the party as an independent, self-snstain- 
ing organism, whicli, like the government, derives its powers 
tVoni the consent of the people, two facts have become more 
and more prominent: first, the struggle for the delegateships 
to the conventions; second, the struggle to control delegates 
by instructions after they were elected. While these are both 
called struggles, the word ha a widely different meaning in 
the two places. In the first it stands for the contest between 
candidates. ISTot only did the party become a nationalized 
organism for a campaign against the enemy, but the candida- 
cies within J:he party for its nomination for a national office 
also became nationalized. But, in the second place, the word 
struggle stands for a contest, not between men, but between 
principles. In every phase of this long conflict the underly- 
ing struggle was between two opposite tendencies. The one 
was toward stronger and stronger party organization, greater 
centralization, increased powers of the caucus, the absolute 
tyranny of the majority, in short, the subordination of the 
individual to the machine, in the name of party discipline. 
The other tendency was toward less organization, less cen- 
tralization, less binding powers for the caucus on its members, 
the representation of minorities, the subordination of the 
machine to the individual. 

The struggle between these tendencies, of which the unit 
rule or the control of the vote of solid delegations, by in- 
structions or by the voice of the majority of the delegation, 
was but a single aspect, reached its highest point so far, in the 
Republican National Convention which assembled in Chicago, 
June 2d, 1880. As will be seen, the contests of that conven- 
tion must make it absolutely unique. The tremendous tide 
toward organization received a strong check. The events of 
that convention are far more significant of the political life- 
tendencies of the American people than the election of the 
followins: November. 



THE CLIMAX OF 1880.— THE (JKANT MOVEMENT. 407 

All other ages and countries have distrusted the people, 
have concentrated power in the hands of the few, and perpet- 
uated it by the rigid forms of despotic government. In Amer- 
ica that tendency was defeated. But the same instincts are 
still present in the hearts of men. It is not impossible that 
in the struggles toward organization, discipline, party central- 
ization and the machine aspect of politics, we see the same 
devilish forces of the past at work in a new tield. It is not 
impossible that in party "bosses," and the tyranny of the ma- 
chine, we are really looking in the face of the ancient foe of 
mankind, whose sole aim was to concentrate and perpetuate 
power in the hands of the few. 

When, after General Grant returned from his trip around 
the world, he consented to become a candidate for the Presi- 
dency, he had a perfect right to do so. It w^as the privilege 
of his countrymen to bring forward and support for that po- 
sition the great Captain of the nineteenth century. .The three 
men who were instrumental in bringing about his candidacy, and 
who managed the campaign for him, were Eoscoe Conkling, of 
New York; Don Cameron, of Pennsylvania, Chairman of the 
Republican National Committee; and John A. Logan, of Illi- 
nois. The history of the canvass for the nomination of General 
Grant shows an ability so remarkable that his defeat must still 
be a matter of wonder. The New York member of the triumvi- 
rate caused a resolution to be passed in his State convention in- 
structing the delegates to vote solidly for Grant. Cameron 
achieved the same thing in Pennsylvania. In Illinois, Logan,, 
fearing or foreseeing that instructions were a feeble reliance, at- 
tempted the more heroic method of electing a solid Grant dele- 
gation by a majority of votes in the State convention. The mi- 
nority, to protect itself, held meetings by congressional districts 
and selected contesting delegates. Over the right to instruct and 
the right to elect solid delegations the battle was fought. It was 
unquestioned that with three solid delegations from the three 
most populous States in the LTnion, and his other strong sup- 
port, Grant's nomination was overwhelmingly assured. The 



408 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

country, in the few days preceding the convention was wrought 
up to a pitch of feverish excitement. 

The three principal candidates for the Presidency, whose names 
were openly before the convention, were: Ulysses S. Grant, of 
Illinois; James G. Blaiue, of Maine; and John Sherman, of Ohio. 

General Grant is the best known living American. His 
wonderful career is familiar throughout the civilized world. 
Rising from the trade of a tanner in an Illinois village, he 
became the commander of the armies of the Republic, the 
greatest soldier of the age, President of the United States for 
two terms, and the most distinguished citizen of the Union. 
The foundation of his fame is his military achievements. 
Taciturn, self-poised, alike unmoved by victory or defeat, 
grim, immovable, bent only o: achieving the thing wliich lay 
before him, of deadly earnestness, equal to every emergency, 
Grant must be admitted to be a man of solitary and sublime 
genius. For practical resources, the age has not produced his 
equal. 

Grant's candidacy at Chicago, which seemed so singular to 
inauy, was really the result of underlying forces, greater than 
any of the men who were borne onward by the tide. First, 
was the fact of his personal candidacy. 

On one side was the Republican party closing its quarter of 
a century — a Long Parliament of counsels, deeds, and changes; 
and, on the other, the tried Cromwell of tlie Commonwealth, 
backed by his victories, and asking the party to recognize him 
again. The party seemed almost destined to make the choice. 
In asking again for the Presidency, it was natural that he 
should look toward organization, discipline, and studied strat- 
egy as the instrumentalities of his canvass. His career as a 
soldier, his mental constitution, and his political training and 
experience during the arbitrary and tempestuous times of the 
civil war and the epoch of reconstruction, his military habit 
of relying on his subordinate generals, all were antecedents of 
the memorable struggle at Chicago, and helped to give it its 
character. 



THE CLIMAX OF ISSO.— THE POLITICAL MACHINE. 409 

But if Grant, in his personal canvass, natnrally reached for 
the party organization to make np his line of battle, the un- 
derlying tendency toward organization in politics, of which we 
liave spoken heretofore, seeking for its strongest personal rep- 
resentative, inevitabl}^ selected Grant. On the one side was 
his individual will turning toward the Machin On the other 
was the far more powerful but impersonal force, in its strug- 
g\e to grasp and subordinate American politics, embodying 
itself in its chosen representative. It will be remembered th..t 
in popular opinion Grant became a candidate as much at the 
request of his friends as from an}^ personal wish. The distin- 
guished gentlemen who thus urged him were animated not 
merely by personal affection and preference, but by the invin- 
cible tendency toward organization, structure, and machinery 
in |)olitics. In the organism the man found his support; in 
the man, the organic force found its strongest represeiitative. 

But what of the opposite tende.ncy, the counter-curreni . 
which set against organization, party discipline, unit rules, 
tlie tyranny of majorities, and toward the freedom of individ- 
ual action? Who was its representative? Was it ready to 
do battle with its gigantic foe? The Chicago Convention must 
be viewed not as a personal struggle between rival candidates, 
but cis the meeting of two mighty waves in the ocean of 
American politics, the shock of whose collision was to be felt 
on the farthest shores. Amid the foam which rose along the 
line of breaking crests, mere men were for the moment almost 
lost from view. 

In the nature of the case the counter tendency could not 
embody itself beforehand in a representative. To be sure there 
vvas Blaine, the dashing parliamentary leader, the magnetic po- 
litician, the brilliant debater. Generous and brave of heart, su- 
perb in his attitude before the maligners of his spotless fame, 
personally beloved by his supporters beyond any man of his 
political generation, he was too independent to represent tlie 
organism, and too much of a candidate, and had too nuu-h 
machinery, too many of the politician's arts, to fully meet the 



410 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

reqiiireniciits of the counter tendency in the great crisis. 
Although Blaine was bej^oncl question running on liis personal 
merits, yet the ftict that he was a leading candidate, but with- 
out a majority, destined him to fall a prey to his competitors. 
In the great political arena, when one gladiator is about to 
triumph over his divided rivals, the latter unite against him, 
that all may die. together, and by giving to an unknown the 
palm of victory save themselves from the humiliation of a 
rival's triumph, 

John Sherman, the very opposite of Blaine, cold, cautious, solid, 
hostile to display, was also a candidate upon personal merits, and 
was also to fail from the same cause. 

It can not be said that there was any other candidate before 
the convention. AVindom, Edmunds, and Washburne, had each a 
small personal following, but neither sought the nomination, and 
all were only possible " dark horses." 

On the floor of the convention. Grant was to be represented by 
the triumvirate of United States Senators, Conkling, Cameron, and 
Logan. Of these, Cameron, though a superb manipulator, a 
s])lendid manager, and a man full of adroitness and resources, 
was a silent man. His voice was not lifted in debate. His work 
was in the secret room, planning, and not amid the clash of arms 
in the open field. Logan, tall and powerful, of coppery complex- 
ion, and long, straight, black hair, which told plainly of the In- 
dian blood, was a somewhat miscellaneous but rather powerful 
debater. His tremendous voice was Avell fitted for large audiences. 
That ho was a man of great force is shown by his career. While 
his two colleagues were descended from high-born ancestry, — Cam- 
eron's father having been the son's predecessor in the United 
States Senate, — Logan sprang from below. 

The leader of the trio, and with one exception the most dis- 
tinguished person in the convention, was Boscoe Conkling. Tall, 
perfectly formed, graceful in every movement, with the figure of 
an athlete, and the head of a statesman, surmounted with a crown 
of snow-white hair, he was a conspicuous figure in the most brill- 
iant assemblage of the great which could convene on any couti- 



THE CLIMAX OF 1880.— A STRIKING CONTRAST. 411 

nent. In speaking, his flute-like tones, modulated by the highest 
elocutionary art, his intensely dramatic manner, his graceful but 
studied gesticulation, united to call attention to the speaker as 
much as to the speech. He was dressed in faultless style, from 
the tightly-buttoned blue frock coat — the very nej)his ultra of the 
tailor's art, — to the exquisite fancy recktie. If it were not for his 
intellect he would have been called a dandy. In his walk there 
was a perceptible strut. But the matter of Conkling's speeches is 
the best revelation of his character. Every sentence was barbed 
with irony; every expression touched with scorn. He was the 
very incarnation of pride. Haughty, reserved, imperious in man- 
ner, at every thrust he cut to the quick. His mastery of the sub- 
ject in hand was always apparently perfect, and not less perfectly 
apparent. He was called " Lord Roscoe," "The Superb," "The 
Duke," and other names indicative of his aristocratic bearing. 
Never for a moment did he cease to carry himself as if he were on 
the stage. It is said that great actors become so identified with 
the characters they impersonate, that even in private life they re- 
tain the character which they have assumed on the stage. Thus 
Booth is said to order his fried eggs with the air of a Hamlet. So 
Conkling never for a moment laid aside the air of high tragedy. 

Nevertheless the commanding genius of the man was unques- 
tioned. He was the chief representative in the Chicago Conven- 
tion of the tendency to more organism, stronger party discipline, a 
more perfect machine. The problem to which he applied all his 
abilities, was to strengthen the party structure ; and to that end, 
practically place the power of both his party and his country in 
tl^ hands of a few. A national party, with the consciences of its 
individual members in the hands of a few astute politicians, could 
control the Government forever. But the end is vicious, and the 
moans an abomination to governments of the people, for the people, 
and by the people. 

The companion figure to that of Roscoe Conkling, of New York, 
was James A. Garfield, of Ohio. He was there as the chief sup- 
porter of John Sherman. The contrast between Conkling and 
Garfield was of the strongest possible kind. In person, Garfield 



412 LIFE OF J-UIES A. GAKFIELD. 

was a taller man than Conkling, but his size and solidity of build 
made him look shorter. His figure, though less trim, had an air 
of comfortable friendliness and cheer about it. He, too, had a 
massive head, but it rested more easily above the broad shoulders. 
His face lacked the lines of scorn traced on the other, and made 
a true picture of a benevolent good nature, a generous, kindly 
heart, and a great and wise intellect. He wore a plain sack coat, 
and his attire generally though neat, was of an unstudied sort. 
He had a habit of sitting with his leg swinging over the arm of 
the chair, and his manners were those of a big, jolly, overgrown 
boy. In speaking he had a deep, rich voice, with a kindly accent, 
in marked contrast with the biting tones of the great New York 
Senator. He was never sarcastic, though often grave. His 
speeches were conservative but earnest. Socially, his manners 
were utterly devoid of restraint ; he was accessible to every body, 
and appeared to be on good terms with himself. The dramatic 
element was completely absent. He believed in Sherman heartily, 
though he was evidently a stranger to the mysterious arts of the 
wire-puller and politician. For himself, he was well satisfied look- 
ing forward to the seat in the United States Senate, which he was 
to enter the next December, with joy and gratification. 

These Avere the two chief figures of the Chicago Convention. 
Each was there as the chief supporter of another. The one was the 
conscious personification and representative of a tendency which, 
for fifty years, had been setting more and more strongly toward 
party organism and permanent structure, having for its aim a per- 
fect power-getting and power-keeping machine. The other was the 
unconscious personification and representative of the opposite tc^i- 
dency, the current which set toward a flexible rather than rigid 
party organization, toward new political ideas, and the independ- 
ence of individual thought. The one was a patrician, the other the 
child of the i)eo])le. 

When the Chicago Convention met, it was the nature of the or- 
ganic tendency to have its candidate selected. On the other hand, 
it was equally the nature of the opposite tendency to have no can- 
didate. But each force was present in the convention working in 



THE CLIMAX OF 1880.— GATHERING OF THE CLANS. 413 

the hearts and minds of its members. Day after day, the angry white 
caps rose along the line where the two waves met. As the crisis 
approached the movement of resistance to the strengthening and 
increase of party organism, with that instinct which belongs to ever)-^ 
subtle underlying tendency in human society, began to look and to 
feel its way toward a personal representative. Having found the 
man, the spirit would enter into him and possess him. 

Thus it was that when the supreme moment came, personal can- 
didates and preferences, pledges and plans, leaders and followers 
ivere suddenly lost from view. The force, which was greater than 
individuals, rose up, embodied itself in the person of a protesting 
and awe-stricken man within whose heart may have been some 
presentiment of the tragic future, and, subordinating all to itself, 
relentlessly demanding and receiving the sacrifice alike of candi- 
dates and of the supporter, defeating for the time being, not so much 
the silent soldier from Galena, as the political tendency which made 
him its representative. 

Notwithstanding the nomination of Garfield, as the remaining 
chajiters of this story will show, the spirit of party organism was not 
killed but stunned. Cast cut from the most famous citizen of the 
Eepublic, it was to enter into a swine. History will say of Guiteau, 
that he embodied and represented a force stronger than himself. 

Let us turn now from the internal philosophy to the external 
facts of the Chicago Convention. 

Chicago is a roomy place and well-suited for the meeting of a 
large assembly, but its resources were taxed by the Convention 
of 1880. By Monday preceding the Convention, its hotels were 
crowded, and thousands upon thousands were pouring in every 
hour. It was a great gathering of rival clans, which did not wait 
the order of their generals to advance, but charged upon eaoh 
other the moment they came ^upon the field. 

There were two battles in progress — the one of the masses, the 
other of the leaders. 

On jMonday evening two public meetings of the " Grant" and 
" anti-Grant " elements, respectively, were held in Dearborn Park 
and in the Base Ball Park. 



414 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

The speakers announced for the Grant meeting were Senators 
Conkliug, Ijogan, Carpenter, Stewart L. Woodford of New York, 
Leonard Swett, Emory Storrs, Robert T, Ijincohi, and Stephen A. 
Douglas. But the advertised speakers did not all appear; neither 
Conlcling nor Carpenter spoke. They were too busy plotting else- 
where. In fact, this Grant meeting was, so flir as any demonstra- 
tion in favor of the third term was concenuHl, an acknowledged 
failure. The speakers, however, managed to throw some spirit 
into the aifair, and aroused some enthusiasm. 

But the anti-Grant meeting, as was quite evident, felt and fared 
better. Though it had been but mcagerly advertised, and but few 
speakers of prominence had been announced, the grounds were 
densely crowded. At least ten thousand persons were in at- 
tendance. 

The tone of the meeting was unmistakalde. The most radical 
utterances were the most loudly cheered. The people declared that 
"they would not submit to boss rule; that they would not have a 
third term ; that they would defeat the villainous attempt to de- 
prive them of their liberties." People came there determined to 
be pleased — with every thing or any thing but Grant. But they 
hissed the third term. They shouted themselves hoarse for Blaine, 
VVashburne, and Edmiuids. 

Speakers from Xew York, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and New 
Hampshire, declared that those States would be lost to the Repub- 
lican party by a third-term campaign. Meanwhile, notwithstand- 
ing the vast crowds attending the two meetings, the corridors of 
the hotels and streets were thronged. The utmost interest Avas 
manifested, and every re])ort of the work of the managers of the 
candidates, whether reasonable or unreasonable, was seized and 
discussed in its bearing upon the candidates. The greatest inter- 
est centered about the Palmer House, where a secret meeting of 
the National Committee was being hohl. 

And what of this secret meeting? The Xationl Coniniittee 
contained a maj(M'ity of anti-Grant men. At its very beginning, 
•VVilliam E. Chandler, of New Hampshire, took the floor and offered 
the following resolutions : 



TPIE CLIMAX OF 1880.— A PRELIMINAEY BATTLE. 415 

"Eesolced, That the committee approves and ratifies the call for the approaching 
Republican National Convention, which was issued by its chairman and secretary, 
and which invites ' two delegates from each Congressional district, four delegates 
at 'arge from each State, two from each Territory, and two frum the District of 
Columbia,' to compose the convention. 

"■ Ri:s<jlced, That this committee recognizes the right of each delegate in a Rcput 
[fcan National Convention freely to cast and have counted his individual vote 
therein, according to his own sentiments, if he so decides, against any ' unit rule' 
or other instructions passed by a State convention, which right was conceded with- 
out dissent, and was exercised in the conventions of 1860 and 1808, and was, after 
a full debate, affirmed by the convention of 1870, and has thus become a part 
of the law of Republican conventions; and until reversed by a convention itself 
must remain a governing principle." 

The first of these passed unanimously. But not so the second. 
The " unit rule " was not to die without a struggle. Chairman 
Cameron promptly declared, this resolution out of order. 

Then Mk. Chaffee, of Colorado, offered a i^esolutiou apju'oving 
of the decision of the Cincinnati Conyention, declaring that each 
delegate should be allowed to vote on all subjects before the 
conyention. Mr. Gorham, of California, inquired of Mr. Cam- 
eron if he intended to entertain these resolutions. Mr. Cameron 
announced that he would not. This cau.sed great excitement, and 
Mr. Chaffee appealed from this decision. The next decision of 
Mr. Cameron caused still greater commotion, this being to the 
effect that there could be no appeal, as there was no question be- 
fore the committee. At this jMr. Chaffee renewed his appeal, say- 
ing that if the committee sulunitted to such tyranny it might as 
well haye a king. This was roundly applauded. Mr. Cameron 
again repeated that there could be no appeal, and he would put 
none. 

Mr. Chandler thereujion, in a vigorous speech, demurred to 
such ruling, and wound up by also appealing from the decision of 
the chair. To further aggravate matters, Cameron again refused to 
entertain the appeal. This brought Frye, of Maine, to his feet, 
and in a caustic speech he told the chairman that the committee 
had rights which he (the chairman) was lutnnd to respect. 

Mr. Chandler significantly remarked that if the chairman would 



41 G LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

not pay any respect to the committee, the same power that made 
him chairman would remove him. 

Mr. Forbes, of Massachusetts, then offered a resohition appoint- 
ing a committee of six to select and present to the committee a can- 
didate to preside at the temporary organization. This ^vas adopted. 
A recess was then taken till half-past ten o'clock. 

It now became certain that the anti-Grant men were ready to 
depose Cameron at once if they could not control him in any 
other way. 

The committee to select the name of a temporary chairman re- 
turned after a recess of fifteen minutes, and reported in favor of 
Senator George F. Hoar, of Massachusetts. Senator Jones an- 
nounced that the minority reserved the right to name a candidate 
in the convention. After some minor matters, Mr. Frye oifered 
one of the resolutions of the caucus, ])roviding, in the case of the 
absence of the chairman of the connnittee from sickness or from 
any cause, that the chairman of the committee of six (Mr. Chand- 
ler) should be authorized to call the convention to order, and per- 
form all the duties pertaining to the temporary organization. 

Mr. McCormick follow^cd with a second resolution of the caucus, 
directing that in all questions pertaining to the temporary organ- 
ization the chairman shall rule that every delegate was at liberty 
to vote as he chooses, regardless of instructions. INIessrs. Gorham, 
Filley, and others, made great opposition, and Mr. Cameron ruled 
that this resolution would not be entertained, since it was not in the 
])ower of the committee to instruct the cliairman as to his rulings. 

A warm debate followed as to th-^ rights and powers of the com- 
mittee. Finally, the meeting attended to some routine business, 
and adjourned till next day noon. 

The battle now grew hotter every hour. Mr, Conkling's dele- 
gation b'oke in two, and issued the following protest: 

"C'TTTCAGn, MayP.l, ISSO. 

"The undcrsiRnod, dolcRates to the Repnbliran National Convention, reproscnt- 

iii<r our several Conjjressioiial distriets in the State of New York, desirins; above <d\ 

the siK-c>'Ks of the Repuhlioan party at the a])proaching election, and realizino: the 

hazard attending an injndirious nomination, declare oar purpose to rcsiat ihe nomina- 



THE CLIMAX OF 1880.— A TRUCE. 417 

tion of General U. S. Grant by all honorable means. "We are sincere in the con vie 
tion that in New Yoi-k, at least, his nomination would insui-e defeat. We have a 
great battle Jo fight, and victory is within our reach, but we earnestly protest 
atrainst entering the contest with a nomination which we regard as unwise and 
perilous. 

"William H. Robertson, 12th Dist. ; William B. Woodin, 26th Dist. ; Norman 
I\I. Allen and Loren B. Sessions, 33d Dist. ; Moses D. Stivei-s and Blake G. Wales, 
14th Dist.; Webster Wagner and George West, 20th Dist.; Albert Daggett, 3d Dist.; 
Simeon S. Hawkins and John Birdsall, 1st Dist.; John P. Douglass and Sidney 
Sylvester, 22d Dist.; John B. Dutcher, 13th Dist.; Henry R. James and Wells S. 
Dickinson, 19th Dist.; James W. Husted, 12th Dist. ; Ferris Jacobs, Jr., 21st Dist.; 
Oliver Abell, Jr., 18th Dist." 

A similar protest was published by twenty-two Pennsylvania 
delegates, headed by Mr. James McManes. 

At nine o'clock on the morning of June 1st, an anti-Grant caucus 
was held, which determined to defeat the " unit rule " at all 
hazards, even if Mr. Cameron must first be deposed from the chair- 
manship. 

The news of the firm attitude of the caucus had reached Cam- 
eron, Gorham, Filley, Arthur, and their associates, and before anv 
movement could be made, the. Grant men announced- that thev had 
a proposition to make, looking to harmonizing all differences. A 
recess was taken to allow a committee on the part of Cameron, 
Conkling, Arthur, and Logan, to state the agreement which thev 
were willing to make. It proved to be as follows: 

"That Senator Hoar should be accepted as tem2:)orary chairman of tlie 
convention, and that no attemjDt should be made to enforce the unit rule, 
or have a test vote in the convention, until the committee on credentials 
had reported, when the unit-rule question should be decided by the con- 
vention in its own way." 

This proposition was finally, in the interest of harmony, agreed 
to by all parties. 

On \yednesday, June 2d, aflcr days and nights of caucusing, 
serenading, speech-making, and cheering by every body, and for 
nearly every body, the great convention held its first session. As 

a clever corresjwndent wrote at the time : 

27 



418 



LIFE OF JAMES A. GAE FIELD. 



*'A more beautiful day in June probably never rose upon a Presiden- 
tial Convention. The sun, the shade, the trees, the lake, the high facades 
of business buildings and palace hotels; the air cool, yet temperate; the 
well-dressed, energetic people, and the signs of prosperous business, 
uninfluenced even by such a convention, sent a hopeful, cheery feeUng 
to the heart. The rageful features of the past day or two went into 
their tents at such sunshine and calm godliness of sky." 

The place of meeting was in the Exposition Building, in the 
^outh half of which vast structure there is a hall 400 feet lone bv 




THE EXPOSITION BUILDING, WHFRF GARFirLP WAS NOMINATED 

150 feet wide, with galleries all round, and so arranged that room 
for about ten thousand people could be provided. 

At eleven o'clock the band stationed on the north gallery began 
ulaying national airs, but nearly an hour passed before the dele- 
gates took their seats. The rhairman called on the Secretary to 
read ih? call, and Secretary Keogh proceeded, in a clear voice, to 
read the document. 



THE CLIMAX OF 18S0.— THE CONVENTION MEETS. 419 

Mr. Cameron then arose, and, in a short address, nominated, as 
temporary chairman, the Hon. George F. Hoar, of Massachusetts, 
who was elected by a unanimous vote. Mr Hoar was then con- 
ducted to the chair; and 'the preliminary organization was thus 
peacefully resigned by the disappointed Grant faction, which had 
expected to control all. 

On motion of Eugene Hale, of Maine, the roll of States and 
Territories was called, and the committees made up. There were 
four: (1) Permanent Organization; (2) Rules; (3) Credentials; and 
(4) Resolutions^ 

After a slight stir over Utah, and a sharp encounter between 
Conkling and Frye, the opening business was completed, and the 
convention adjourned for that day. 

A newspaper dispatch sent out of the room during this session 
said : 

"There is a good deal of talk about Garfield. Some significance i.s 
attached to the fact that when the name was mentioned in the conven- 
tion to-day as a member of the Committee on Rules it was loudly ap- 
plauded." 

And another added : 

"A prolonged contest is now certain on the floor of the convention to- 
day over the reports from the conmiittees on Credentials, Rules, and 
Resolutions. Senator Conkling is recognized as the leader of debate on 
the Grant side. Frye and Hale will be the principal speakers, with 
Garfield and Conger on the part of the majority. The debates preced- 
ing the balloting promise to be the most heated and the ablest ever 
heard in a Republican Convention." 

That night the popular battle in the streets and lobbies con- 
tinued, attended with ever-growing excitement. Grant men and 
Blaine men loudly proclaimed their confidence in a victory for_ 
their respective favorites, on the first or second ballot. Each of 
these two leaders claimed about three hundred reliable votes; but, 
in fact, they had not six hundred between them. 

Sherman, Edmunds, Washburne, and Windom men felt sure that 
neither Blaine nor Grant could be nominated on account of the' 



420 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

violent opposition of their factions. This gave hope to each of 
these smaller sections, and made " dark-horse ' ■ talk plausible. 

At eleven o'clock of June 3d, the second day's fight of the 
convention began. As the delegations took their places, the great 
crowd of spectators occupied themselves in getting acquainted 
Avith the men who Avere to give and receive the hard blows to be 
dealt by both sides when the contest opened. All these men — 
Conkling, Garfield, Frye, Hale, and Logan — were cordially re- 
ceived, though there Avere degrees in the favor. 

The most spontaneous of the greetings given any.one of the lead- 
ers Avas" to Garfield. One of the ovations to him gave rise to a 
ludicrous affair for Conkling. The latter had made his usual late 
and pompous entrance, had been received with much noise, and 
AAalked sloAA'ly up to his seat near the front. Just as he rose to 
shoAv himself further and address the chair, General Garfield came 
in at tlie rear. A tremendous and rapidly spreading cheer broke 
out, Avhich the Xcaa' York " Duke" mistook for his oaa^i property. 

The second day AA^as noAv passing, and the preliminaries Avere 
not yet complete. It Avas the policy of the Grant men to make de- 
lay, and Avear out the strength of all opponents. They had come, 
as Cameron said, " to stick until Ave Avin." The' Blaine leaders, on 
the other hand, had no such reliable, lasting force. They must 
dash in ])()]dly and carry off their prize at once, or be forcA'er 
defeated. 

To-day the Blaine men came in jubilant, for they had beaten 
the Grant faction in the committees. Conkling opened the pro- 
ceedings from the floor at the earliest moment. He moA'ed to 
adjourn until evening to aAA'ait the report of the Committee on 
Credentials. Hale opposed this. Conkling, in his haste, forget- 
ting his parliamentary knoAAdedge, claimed that his motion to take 
a recess A\'as not debatable. The Chairman overruled this, much 
to the annoyance of Conkling. He soon poured out a little vial 
of AA'rath on Hale, and sneered at him as his " amiable friend." 
To this Hale retorted that he had not spent his time in cultivating 
sarcastic and sneering methods in argument; and if the Senator 
from XcAv York was less amiable than others this morning the 



THE CLIMAX OF 1880.— A SECOND ADJOL'EXMEN^T. 421 

convention understood the reason well. At this reference to the 
general defeat of the Grant forces in the committees during the last 
evening the people laughed loudly at Conkling, and that august 
gentleman himself deigned to smile. ■ 

Soon the Committee on Permanent Organization reported, the 
temporary chairman and other officers were continued, and ^Ir, 
Hoar took permanent possession of his Chairmanship. Thereupon 
^Ir. Frye moved that the Committee on Rules and Order of Busi- 
ness report at once. Mr. Sharpe, of New York, now arose and said 
that he had been instructed by the delegates of nine States to pre- 
pare a minority report of the Committee on Rules; that he had 
not had time to do so, and this ought not to be taken advantage 
of, because, by agreement in the committee, he should have had a 
longer time to prepare. 

]\lr. Frye then said that if the chairman of that committee — 
Mr. Garfield — was present, he would request that gentleman to 
state what agreement had been made. 

As General Garfield arose in his seat he was greeted with loud 
and prolonged cheers and applause, and cries of " Platform," "Step 
up on the seat." He said: 

" Mr. President, the Committee on Rules finished its business at about 
eleven o'clock by adopting a body of rules and an order of business. A 
resolution was then offered by one member of the committee that it was 
the judgment of the committee that the report ought to be made after 
the report of the Committee on Credentials, and that was adopted, 
whether unanimously or not I am unable to say, for the committee w:w5 
about breaking up. General Sharpe requested that a minority of that 
committee might have leave to oflTer their views as a minority, and no 
objection was made. No vote was taken on that latter topic. I <li<i 
not, therefore, and shall not tender a report of the Committee on Rules. 
I am, however, like every other delegate, subject to the orders of this 
convention, and when they desire the repoi't and order it, I supjwse the 
committee are ready to make it, but good faith requires this certainly, 
that if the minority is not ready with its report it ought to have the time." 

Mr. Frye then withdrew his motion, and the convention ad- 
journed until evening. 



422 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAIIFIELD. 

At half-past five they had reassembled aud the battle proceeded 
at the point where it had been dropped before adjournment. 

The Committee on Credentials were not ready to report, and it 
was so announced. The Blaine men forced the fighting, entering 
a motion by Mr. Henderson, of Iowa, that the convention proceed 
to consider the report of the Committee on Rules and Organization. 
This the Grant men resisted, and for this reason: The rules which 
had been agreed to by the committee only allowed five minutes de- 
bate on the matter of each individual contested seat. The Grant 
men did not want the report adopted before the Committee on Cre- 
dentials reported, l)ccause they wanted to ascertain just what the 
latter report would be. Logan led the fight for Grant, supported 
by Boutwell and others. Henderson held his own very well. Fi- 
nally, after an hour of this running fire of debate, Mr. Sharj^e 
moved to amend the pending motion by substituting an order that 
the Committee on Credentials report at once. 

On this amendment a vote was soon reached which proved to be 
the most significant event of the day; for it was the first vote taken 
by States; it was a test vote between the Grant men on the one 
side aud the allied anti-Grant factions on the other, and it settled 
the fate of the " unit rule." 

Upon Alabama being called, the Chairman of the delegation, 
Mr. Dunn, announced 20 ayes. 

Mr. Allen Alexander, of Alabama, a colored delegate — I desire 
vo vote " No." 

The Chairman — Does the gentleman from Alabama desire that 
liis vote fhould be received in the negative? 

Mr. Alexander — Yes, sir. 

The Chainnan — It will be so recorded. 

Several other States offered divided votes. 

The result was against Sharpe's substitute, by a vote of 318 to 
40(3. About forty delegates were absent or did not vote. There 
was great rejoicing among the anti-Grant factions when it became 
certain that Hoar would allow no "\init rule" until forced to do 
BO by an order of the conx-'^ntion. 

On motion of Mr. Brandagee, of Connecticut, Henthrson's mo- 



THE CLIMAX OF 188O.— A GLOOMY FKIDAY. 423 

tion was laid on the table, and adjournment till the next day fol- 
lowed immediately. 

Friday of convention week dawned less delightfully than did 
the first two days. There was a cloudy sky, an east wind, a rheu- 
matic, chilly atmosphere penetrating every nook and corner of the 
great Convention Hall, and a crowd of shivering mortals pushed and 
elbowed each other up and down the passages, delegates looking 
angular, stiff, and cold, and angry, — every body denouncing the 
weather. The dull light made the pictures on the walls look sour 
and stern and cross. The frown on the wretched oil-painted face 
of old Ben Wade was deepened ; Zach Chandler's hard mouth ap- 
peared more firmly set, and Sumner's jaw was more rigid and un- 
compromising than ever in life. The flags drooped under the de- 
jiressing atmospheric influences, blue turned black, the red was dull, 
and the white looked dirty, and the stars were dim. The opening 
scenes of each day had now assumed a stereotyped form. Conk- 
ling made his arrival in state as usual, and the usual cheer went up. 
(jeneral Phil Sheridan was greeted with hearty applause, and Gar- 
field's entrance was the signal for a great ovation. 

Hardly had the opening prayer of the good man of God come 
t^ its amen when Mr. Conkling offered the following : 

ReMved, As the sense of this Convention, that every member of it is bound in 
honor to snpportits nominee, whoever that nominee may be; and that uo man 
should hold a seat here who is not ready to so agree. 

Mr. Hale said ho thought that a Republican Convention did not 
need to be instructed, that its first and underlying duty, after nomi- 
nating its candidate, was to elect him over the Democratic candidate. 

A call of the States being requested, the convention voted 
unanimously in favor of Mr. Conkling's resolution, with the ex- 
ception of three hostile votes from West Virginia. 

Mr. Conkling then offered the following: 

^'Ee><(ilved, That the delegates who have voted that they -ivill not abide the ac- 
tion of the convention do not deserve and have forfeited their vote in this con- 
vention." 

Mr. Campliell, of West Virginia — "Mr. Chairman: There are three 



424 LIP^E OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

gentlemen from West Virginia, good and true Republicans, who have 
voted in the negative in the last vote. Gentlemen, as a delegate in 
a Republican Convention, I am willing to withdraw. If it has come 
to this that in t!ie city of Chicago, where I came as a young man 
from the State of Virginia, after having submitted twenty years to 
contumely and to violence in the State of Virginia for my Republican 
principles — if it has come to this, that in the city of Chicago a dele- 
gate from that State can not have a free expression of opinion, I f>r 
one am willing to withdraw from this convention. Mr. Chairman, I 
have been a Republican in the State of Virginia from my youth. 
Fcr twenty-five years I have published a Republican newspa[)ej- in 
that State. I have supported every Republican Presidential nominee 
in that time. I expect to support the nominee of this convention. 
But, sir, I shall do so as a Reimblican, having imbibed my principles 
from the great statesman from New York, William H. Seward, with 
whom I had an early acquaintance by virtue of my having gone to 
school with him nine years from the city of Utica, from which the 
Senator from New York now hails. I was a Republican then, and 
I made the acquaintance of that distinguished gentleman. I came 
home, and in my youth I became a newspaper editor. From that 
day to this — from the John Brown raid on Harper's Ferry all through 
the troubles of the last twenty-five years — I have consistently and 
always supported our State and National Republican nominee. But, 
Mr. Chairman, I feel as a Republican that there is a principle in this 
question, and I will never go into any convention and agree beforehand 
that whatever may be done by that convention shall have my indorse- 
ment. Sir, as a free man, whom God made free, I always intend to 
carry my sovereignty under my own hat. I never intend that any body 
of men shall take it from me. I do not, Mr. Chairman, make my 
living by politics; I make it by my labor as a newspaper editor; and 
I am not afraid to go home and say that I stood up here in this con- 
vention, as I was not afraid to stand up in the State of West Virginia, 
when but 2,900 men were found to vote for Abraham Lincoln, and 
where that party has risen to-day to 45,000 votes under the training 
that we received from our early inspiration of principle. I am not 
afraid to go home and face these men as I have feced them alway:*." 

The two other disseiitors also stated their position as deti- 
iintly if not as ably. After some further debate, Mr, Garlield 



THE CLIMAX OF 1880.— EULE YIII. 425 

spoke, taking ground against Conkling's pending resolution. 
AVliile speaking to this, lie said: 

"There never can be a convention, of which I am one delegate, equal 
in rights to every other delegate, that shall bind my vote against my 
will on any question whatever on which my vote is to be given. 

"I regret tliat these gentlemen thought it best to break the harmony 
of this convention by their dissent ; but, when they tell the convention 
that their dissent was not, and did not mean, that they would not 
vote for the nominee of this convention, but only that they did not 
tiiink the resolution at this tinie wise, they acted in their right, and 
not by my vote. I do not know the gentlemen, nor their affiliations, 
nor their relations to candi(Jates, except one of them. One of them I 
knew in the dark days of slavery, and for twenty long years, in the 
midst of slave-pens and slave-drivers, has stood up for liberty witli a 
clear-sighted courage and a brave heart equal to the best Republicans 
that live on this globe. And if this convention expel him, then Ave 
must purge ourselves at the end of every vote by requiring that so many 
as shall vote against us shall go out." 

A few minntes later Air. Conkling withdrew the obnoxious 
resolution. 

The "first important business of the day was now transacted. 
Mr. Garfield, as Chairman of the Committee on Eules and 
Order of Business, read the report of that committee. Its 
most important provision was: 

"Eule VIII. In the record of the votes by States, the vote of each State, 
Territory, and the District of Columbia, shall be announced by the chairman; 
and in case the votes of any State, Territory, or the District of Columbia sliall 
be divided, the cliairman shall announce the number of votes cast for any can- 
didate or for or against any proposition; but, if exception is taken by any del- 
egate to the correctness of such announcement by the chairman of his delega- 
tion, the president of the convention shall direct the roll of members of such 
delegation to be called and the result recorded in accordance with the votes in- 
dividually given." 

From this resolution a minority of the committee dissented, 
and, through General Sharpe, presented, aci Rule VIII, the 
following: 

"In the record of the votes by States, the vote of each State, Territury, and 



426 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

the District of Columbia shall be announced by the chairman; and in case the 
votes of any State, Territory, or the District of Columbia shall be divided, the 
chairman shall announce the number of votes cast for any candidate or for or 
against any proposition." 

When the final action was taken, the majority report pre- 
vailed. 

At last there came the long-delayed report of the Commit- 
tee on Credentials, the one great matter preliminary to the real 
work of this great gathering of the people's representatives. 
This committee's principal duty was to decide upon the conflict- 
ing claims of "regular" and "bolting" delegations from several 
States. 

The reading of this report was painfully tedious, taking 
over three hours ; and the debates which followed as the sep- 
arate State contests were being settled, kept any other busi- 
ness from being done that day. 

From the State of Louisiana, the committee recommended 
the admission of the delegation with their alternates headed 
by Henry C. Warmouth, and the exclusion of the delegation 
with their alternates headed by Taylor Beattie. This contest 
arose out of two rival conventions. 

The committee recommended James T. Hapier for admission 
as a delegate from the Fourth Congressional District of Ala- 
bama. The facts found were that Rapier had been requested 
to pledge support for Grant, and upon his refusal to do so the 
president of the convention had been requested to withhold 
the credentials unless he would, within twenty-four hours, give 
such pledge. This, Rapier had refused to do. 

The committee recommended that William H. Smith and 
Willard Warner be admitted in the place of Arthur Bingham 
and R. A. Mosely from the Seventh Congressional District of 
Alabama. The facts in the case of Messrs. Smith and Warner 
were substantially the same as those in the case of James T. 
Rapier. 

The committee recommended the admission of eight del- 
egations from the State of Illinois, in the })lace of sitting 



THE CLIMAX OF 1880.— AN EXTEAOEDINAEY SESSION. 427 

members. The Committee found that a State Convention had 
Ijceii lield at Springfield, on the 19th day of May, to elect 
delegates to the National Convention. During the conven- 
tion, the delegates from eight Congressional Districts had as- 
sembled and organized District Conventions, each of which 
had elected two delegates and two alternates to the Chicago 
Convention by clear majorities of all the delegates elected to 
the State Convention in each of said districts, as was shown 
by the credentials accompanying the report. The State Con- 
vention, by means of a committee of one from each Congres- 
sional District, selected, and afterward assumed to elect, two 
delegates to the IN'ational Convention, including the sitting 
members from the foregoing districts, the delegates from each 
of which filed in the State Convention protests against said 
election by the State Convention. The committee reported 
against the validity of the contests in the Second District of 
Illinois of the seats of sitting members, A. M. Wright and 
E. S. Tuthill. 

Contests were also settled by this report in cases coming 
from several other States. 

In each case of favorable consideration, the committee 
ascertained that those delegates who were recommended 
were actually chosen by a proper convention, represent- 
ing the Congressional District from which they were accred- 
ited. 

The committee then proceeded to the justice and equit}' of 
recognizing, securing, and protecting Congressional District 
I'epresentation, as is also demonstrated by the actual prece- 
dents of the Republican party since its organization. 

With the exception of a couple of hours for supper, this 
extraordinary session kept to the subjects of this reyiort 
steadily from one o'clock in the afternoon till after two in 
the morning. This chapter can not find room for these de- 
bates, though surpassing in interest, as they do, many a 
volume of the Covr/ressional Becord. The Illinois questions 
caused the most intense feeling of all. At ten o'clock they 



428 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

were taken up ; after a short time, on motion, the further de- 
bate was limited to one hour on each side. 

The whole subject of this report was not fully disposed of 
until early in the Saturday session. The result was that the 
majority report was adopted, and the "machine " thus received 
another solid shot, which penetrated its iron sides below water- 
line ; but the leaders fired no guns to signal their distress. 

Saturday, June 5th, was, like Friday, dark and gloomy. 
The vast crowd, after the preceding night of excitement, was, 
of course, dull and sleepy. It was noted, however, that when 
Garfield came into the hall the audience waked up and gave a 
hearty cheer. 

The roll was called at about twelve o"clock. After finishing 
the matters connected with the credentials, the Convention, on 
motion of General Garfield, adopted the report of the Commit- 
tee on liules. The Committee on Resolutions next reported, 
and the Platform was adopted; after which the Convention 
adjourned till evening. 

Skirmishing ended, now would come serious work. The 
triumvirate and its legions had exhausted every parliamentary 
resource for delay, and at last had to face "the inevitable hour" 
which must lead, for them, to glory, or the common grave of 
all their plans. 

It was a magnificent audience which poured into the great 
hall that evening to witness the beginning of the end of this 
tremendous political conflict. 

After some preliminaries, Mr. Hale, of Maine, moved that tlie 
roll of States be called alphabeticall}^ and that nominations for 
candidates for President be made. 

General Logan inquired whether the rules permitted the sec- 
onding of nominations for candidates for President. The Chair- 
man said no, that the rules did not provide for it. Garfield thought 
there would be no oljjection to the seconding of nominations. 
Unanimous consent was accorded for five-minute speeches in 
seconding nominations. Hale's motion was then adopted with- 
out opposition. 



THE CLIMAX OF 1880.— NOMINATION OF BLAINE. 429 

The roll ^yas then called down to Michigan, with no re- 
sponses. When that State was named, James F. Joy arose 
and nominated, for President of the United States, James G. 
Blaine. Mr. Joy was not the kind of a man to aronse the enthn- 
siasm of an audience, and wdien he had closed, Mr. Pixley, of 
California, seconded the nomination. These speeches were a 
great disappointment to the Blaine men. They still remem- 
bered Ingersoll's famous "plumed knight" speech for Blaine at 
Cincinnati, in 1876. To remedy matters, Mr. William P. Frye, 
of Maine, obtained the floor by consent, and delivered the fol- 
lowing brief, but brilliant little speech, which, in a measure, 
retrieved the mistake already made. He said : 

"I saw once a storm at sea iu the night-time, and our staunch old ship 
battling for its life with the fury of the tempest; darkness every-where; 
the wind shrieking and howling through the rigging; the huge waves 
beating upon the sides of that ship and making her shiver from stem to 
stern. The lightnings were flashing, the thunders were rolling. There was 
danger every-where. I saw at the helm a calm, hold, courageous, im- 
movable, commanding man. In the tempest, calm; in the commotion, 
quiet ; in the dismay, hopeful. I saw him take that old ship and bring 
her into the harbor, into still waters, into safety. That man was a hero. 
I saw the good old ship, the State of Maine, within the last year, fight- 
ing her way through the same darkness, through the same perils, against 
the same waves, against the same dangers. She was freighted with all 
that is precious in the principles of our Republic — with the rights of 
American citizenship, with all that is guaranteed to the American citizen 
by our Constitution. The eyes of the whole Nation were upon her; an 
intense anxiety filled every American heart, lest the grand old ship, the 
State of j\Iaine, might go down beneath the waves forever, carrying liei- 
precious freight with her. But, sir, there was a man at the helm. Calm, 
deliberate, commanding, sagacious, he made even the foolish men wise. 
Courageous, he inspired the timid with courage; hopeful, he gave heart to 
the dismayed, and he brought that good old ship proudly into the harbor, 
into safety, and there she floats today, brighter, purer, stronger from her 
baptism of danger. That man, too, was a hero, and his name was James 
G. Blaine. Maine sends greetings to this magnificent Convention. 
With the memory of her own salvation from impending peril fresh upon 



430 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

her, she says to you, representatives of 50,000,000 of American people, 
who have met here to counsel how the Republic shall be saved, she says 
to you, representatives of the people, take a man, a true man, a staunch 
man for your leader, who has just saved her, and who will bear you to 
safety and certain victory." 

Minnesota was next called ; wherenpon E. F.Drake placed 
in nomination William Windom, of AVinona, a very able and 
distinguished Senator from that State. 

Xow was heard the call for iS'ew York; a call which meant] 
Roscoe Conkling and the nomination of the great General and] 
ex-President, Ulysses S. Grant. 

As Mr. Conkling advanced to the front, he was greeted withi 
tremendous cheers. Taking a commanding position on one of j 
the reporter's tables, he stood a few moments and regarded the] 
audience while they grew silent at an imperious wave of his 
hand. Then he said : 

" When asked whence comes our candidate, our sole reply shall be, 
he hails from App'nnattox with its famous apple-tree. In obedience toj 
instructions I should never dare to disregard, expressing also my ownJ 
firm conviction, I rise to propose a nomination with which the country] 
and the Republican party can grandly win. The election before us is to 
be the Austerlitz of American politics. It will decide for many years] 
whether the country shall be Republican or Cossack. The supreme need] 
of the hour is not a candidate who can carry Michigan. All Republican 
candidates can do that. The need is not of a candidate popular in the | 
territories, because they have no vote. The need is of a candidate who j 
can carry doubtful States. Not the doubtful States of the North, butj 
doubtful States of the South, which we have heard, if I understand it] 
aright, ought to take little or no part here, because the South has noth- 
ing to give, but every thing to receive. No, gentlemen, the need that; 
presses upon the conscience of this convention is of a candidate who can 
carry doubtful States both North and South. And believing that he, 
more surely than any other man, can carry New York against any op- 
ponent, and can carry not only the North but several States of the South, 
New York is for Ulysses S. Grant. Never defeated in peace or in war, 
Jiis name is the most illustrious borne by living man. 



THE CLIMAX OF ISSO.— XOMIXATIOX OF GEAXT. 431 

" His services attest his greatness, and the country — nar, the ^Yo^]d — 
knows them by heart. His fame was earned not alone in things written 
and said, but by the arduous greatness of things done. And perils and 
emergencies Avill searcli in vain in the future, as they have searched in 
vuin in the past, for any other on whom the nation leans with such con- 
fidence and trust. Kever having had a policy to enforce against the will 
of the people, he never betrayed a cause or a friend, and the people will 
never desert nor betray him. Standing on the highest eminence of human 
distinction, modest, firm, simple, and self-poised, having filled all lands 
with his renown, he has seen not only the high-boin and the titled, 
but the poor and the lowly in the uttermost ends of the earth, rise and 
uncover before him. He has studied the needs and the defects 
of many systems of government; and he has returned a better American 
than ever, Avith a wealth of knowledge and experience added to the hard 
common sense which shone so conspicuously in all the fierce light that 
beat upon him during sixteen years, the most trying, the most porten- 
tous, the most perilous. 

"Vilified and reviled, truthlessly aspersed by unnumliered presses, not 
in other lands, but in his own, assaults upon him have seasoned and 
strengthened his hold on the public heart. Calumny's ammunition has 
all been exploded; the powder has all been burned once; its force is 
spent: and the name of Grant will glitter a bright and imperishable 
star in the diadem of the Republic when those who have tried to tarnish 
that name have moldered in forgotten graves, and when their memories 
and their epitaphs have vanished utterly. 

"Never elated by success, never depressed by adversity, he has ever, 
in peace as in war, shown the very genius of common sense. The terms 
he prescribed for Lee's surrender foreshadowed the wisest pro'zhecies and 
principles of true reconstruction. Victor in the greatest war of modern 
times, he quickly signalized his aversion to war, and his love of peace by 
an arbitration of international disputes, which stands the wisest, the 
most majestic example of its kind in the world's diplomacy. When in- 
flation, at the height of its jiopularity and frenzy, had swept both Houses 
of Congress, it was the veto of Grant which, single and alone, overthrew 
expansion, and cleared the Avay for specie resumption. To him, to hivi 
immeasui-ably more than to any other man, is due the fact that every 
paper dollar is as good as gold. 

" With him as our leader we shall have no defensive campaign. No ! 



432 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

AVe shall have nothing to explain away. We shall have no apologies to 
make. The shafts and the arro\vs have all been aimed at him, and they 
lie l:)roken and harmless at his feet. 

"Life, liberty, and property will find a safeguard in him. When he 
paid of the colored men in Florida, 'Wherever I am they may come 
also ; ' when he so said, he meant that had he the power, the poor dwell- 
ers m the cabins of the South should no longer be driven in terror from 
the homes of their childhood and the graves of their murdered dead. 
When he refused to receive Denis Kearney in California, he meant that 
Communism, lawlessness, and disorder, although it might stalk high- 
headed and dictate law to a whole city, would find a foe in him. He 
meant that popular or unpopular, he would hew to the line of right, let 
the chips fly where they may. 

"His integrity, his common sen.ie, his courage, his unequaled experience, 
are the qualities oflfered to his country. The only argument, the only one 
that the wit of man or the stress of politics 1ms devised is one which would 
dumbfounder Solomon, because he thought there was nothing new under 
the sun. Having tried Grant twice and found him faithful, we are told 
that we must not, even r.fter an inter\'al of years, trust him again. My 
countrymen! my countrymen whnt stultification does not such a fal- 
lacy involve. The American people exclude Jefferson Davis from ])ul> 
lie trust. Why? Why? Because he was the arch -traitor and would-be 
destroyer ; and now the same people is asked to ostracise Grant, and not 
to trust him. Why ? Why, I repeat ? Because he was the arch-pre- 
server of his country, and because not only in war, but twice as Civil 
Magistrate, he gave his highest, noblest efforts to the Republic. Is this 
an electioneering juggle, or is it hypocrisy's masquerade? There is no 
field of human activity, responsibility, or reason, in which rational beings 
oljject to an agent because he has been weighed in the balance and not 
found wanting; no department of human reason in which sane men re- 
ject an agent because he has had experience,, making him exceptionally 
competent and fit. From the man who shoes your horse to the lawyer 
who tries your cause, the officer who manages your railway or your )iiill, 
the doctor into whose hands you give your life, or the minister who seeks 
to save your soul, what man do you reject because, by his works, you 
have known him, and found him faithful and fit? What makes the 
Presidential office an exception to all things else in the common sense 
to be. applied to selecting its incumbent ? Wlio dares — wiio dares to put 



THE CLIMAX OF 1880.— NOMINATION OF GRANT. 433 

fetters ou that free choice and judgment which is the birthright of the 
American people? Can it be said that Grant has used official poAver 
and place to perpetuate his term? He has no place, and official power 
has not been used for him. Without patronage and without emissaries, 
uithout committees, without bureaus, without telegraph wires running 
from his house to this Convention, or running from his house anywhere 
else, this man is the candidate whose friends have never threatened to 
bolt unless this Convention did as they said. He is a Republican who 
never wavers. He and his friends stand by the creed and the candi- 
dates of the Republican party. Tliey hold the rightful rule of the ma- 
jority as the very essence of their faith, and they mean to uphold that 
faith against not only the common enemy, but against the charlatans, 
jayhawkers, tramps, and guerrillas — the men who deploy between the 
lines, and forage now on one side and then on the other. This Conven- 
tion is master of a supreme opportunity. It can name the next Presi- 
dent. It can make sure of his election. It can make sure not only of 
his election, but of his certain and peaceful inauguration. It can break 
that power which dominates and mildews the South. It caii overthrow 
an organization whose very existence is a standing ^irotest against prog- 
ress. 

"The purpose of the Democratic party is spoils. Its very hoj^e of ex- 
istence is a solid South. Its success is a menace to order and progress. 
I say this Convention can overthrow that power. It can dissolve and 
emancipate a solid South. It can speed the Nation in a career of 
grandeur eclipsing all past achievements. Gentlemen, we have -only to 
listen above the din and look beyond the dust of an hour to behold the 
Republican party advancing with its ensigns resplendent with illustrious 
achievements, marching to certain victory with its greatest JMarshal at 
its head." 

After Mr. Bradley, of Kentucky, had seconded Grant's nom- 
ination, tlie call proceeded, and Ohio being reached, General 
Gai-field arose. Amid great applause he advanced to iMr. 
Conkling's late high station on a table, and, as soon as order 
was restored, said: 

"Mr. President: I have witnessed the extraordinary scenes of tliis 
Convention with deep solicitude. No emotion touches my heart more 
quickly than a sentiment in honor of a great and noble character. But 
28 



434 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

as I sat on these seats and witnessefl these demonstrations, it seemed to 
me you were a human ocean in a tempest. I have seen the sea lashed 
into fury and tossed into spray, and its grandeur moves the soul of the 
dullest man. But I remember that it is not the billows, but the calm 
level of the sea from which all heights and depths are measured. When 
the storm has passed and the hour of calm settles on the ocean, when 
sunshine bathes its smooth surface, then the astronomer and surveyor 
takes the level from which he measures all terrestrial heights and depths. 
Gentlemen of the convention, your present temper may not piark the 
healthful pulse of the people. 

" When our entliusiasm has passed, when the emotions of this hour 
have subsided, we .shall find the calm level of public opinion, below the 
storm, from which the thoughts of a mighty people are to be measured, 
and by which their final action will be determined. Not here, in this 
brilliant circle, where 15,000 men and women are assembled, is the des- 
tiny of the Republic to be decreed; not here, where I see the entliusias- 
tic faces of 756 delegates waiting to cast their votes into the urn and 
determine the choice of their party; but by 5,000,000 Republican fire- 
sides, where the thoughtful fathers, with wives and children about them, 
with calm thoughts inspired by love of home and love of country, with 
tlie history of the past, the hopes of the future, and the knowledge of 
the great men Avho have adorned and blessed our nation in days gone 
!)V, — there God prepares the verdict that shall determine the wisdom 
of our work to-night. Not in Chicago, in the heat of June, but in the 
sober quiet that comes between now and November, in the silence of de- 
liberate judgment, will this great question be settled. Let us aid them 
to-night. 

"But now, gentlemen of the Convention, Avhat do we want? Bear 
with me a moment. Hear me for this cause, and for a moment, be silent 
thit you may hear. Twenty-five years ago this Republic was wearing a 
•triple chain of bondage. Long familiarity with the traffic in the body 
and souls of men had paralyzed the consciences of a majority of our 
people. The baleful doctrine of State sovereignty had shocked and weak- 
ened the noblest afid most beneficent powers of the National Govern- 
ment, and the grasping power of slavery was seizing the virgin Territo- 
ries of the West and dragging them into the den of eternal bondage. 
At that crisis the Republican party was born. It drew its first inspir- 
ation from the fire of liberty which God has lighted in every man's heart, 



THE CLIMAX OF 1880.— NOMINATION OF SHERMAN. 435 

and which all the powers of ignorance and tyranny can never wholly 
extinguish. The Republican party came to deliver and save the Re- 
public. It entered the arena when beleaguered and assailed Territories 
were struggling for freedom, and drew around them t!ie sacred circle of 
liberty, which the demon of slavery has never dared to cross. It made 
them free forever. 

" Strengthened by its victory on the frontier, the young party, under 
the leadership of that great man, who on this spot, twenty years ago, 
was made its leader, entered the national capital and assumed the high 
duties of the Government. The light which shone from its banner dis- 
pelled the darkness in which slavery had enshrouded the Capitol and 
melted the shackles of every slave, and consumed, in the fire of liberty, 
every slave-pen within the shadow of the Capitol. Our national indus- 
tries, by an impoverishing policy, were themselves prostrated, and the 
streams of revenue flowed in such feeble currents that the treasury itself 
was well nigh empty. The money of the people was the wretched notes 
of 2,000 uncontrolled and irresponsible state bank corporations, which 
were filling the country with a circulation that poisoned rather than sus- 
tained the life of business. 

"The Republican party changed all this. It abolished the babel of 
confusion and gave the country a currency as national as its flag, based 
upon the sacred faith of the people. It threw its protecting arm around 
our great industries, and they stood erect as with new life. It filled 
with the spirit of true nationality all the great functions of the Govern- 
ment. It confronted a rebellion of unexampled magnitude, with a 
slavery behind it, and, under God, fought the final battle of liberty until 
victory was won. Then, after the storms of battle, were heard the sweet, 
calm words of peace uttered by the conquering nation, and saying to the 
cimquered foe that lay prostrate at its feet, ' This is our only revenge, 
that you join us in lifting to the serene firmament of the Constitution, 
to shine like stars forever and forever, the immortal principles of truth 
and justice, that all men, white or black, shall be free and stand equal 
before the law.' Then came the questions of reconstruction, the public 
debt, and the public faith. 

"In the settlement of these questions the Republican party has com- 
pleted its twenty-five years of glorious existence, and it has sent us here 
to prepare it for another lustrum of duty and of victory. How shall we 
do this great vvork ? We can not do it, my friends, by assailing our Re- 



43n LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

J ubUcan brethren. God forbid that I should say one word to cast a 
shadow upon any name on the roll of our heroes. This coming fight is 
our Thermopylae. We are standing upon a narrow isthmus. If our 
Spartan hosts are united we can withstand all the Persians that the 
Xerxes of Democracy can bring against us. 

"Let us hold our ground this one year, for the stars in their courses 
fight for us in the future. The census to he taken this year will bring 
reinforcements and continued power. But, in order to win this victory 
now, we want the vote of every RepubHcan, of every Grant Republican 
in America, of every Blaine man and every anti-Blaine man. The vote 
of every follower of every candidate is needed to make our success cer- 
tain; therefore I say, gentlemen and brethren, we are here to cahnly 
counsel together, and inquire what we shall do. [A voice: 'Nominate 
Garfield.' — Great applause.] 

" We Avant a man whose life and opinions embody all the achieve- 
ments of which I have spoken. We want a man who, standing on a 
mountain height, sees all the achievements of our past history, and car- 
ries in his heart the memory of all its glorious deeds, and who, looking 
forward, prepares to meet the labor and the dangers to come. We want 
one who will act in no spirit of unkindness toward those we lately met 
in battle. The Republican party offers to our brethren of the South the 
olive branch of peace, and wishes them to return to brotherhood, on this 
supreme condition, that it shall be admitted, forever and for evermore, 
that, in the war for the Union, we were right and they were wrong. 
On that supreme condition we meet them as brethren, and no other. 
We ask them to share with us the blessings and honors of this great 
Republic. 

"Now, gentlemen, not to weary you, I am about to present a name 
for your consideration — the name of a man who was the comrade, and 
associate, and friend of nearly all those noble dead whose faces look down 
upon us from these walls to-night ; a man who began his career of pub- 
lic service twenty-five years ago, whose first duty was courageously done 
in the days of peril on the plains of Kansas, when the first red drops of 
that bloody shower began to fall which finally swelled into the deluge 
of war. He bravely stood by young Kansas then, and, returning to liis 
duty in the national legislature, through all subsequent time his pathway 
h.as been marked by labors performed in every department of legislation. 

'•You ask for his moinnnents. I point you to twenty-five years of the 



THE CLIMAX OF 1880.— ADJOURNS TILL MONDAY. 43" 

national statutes. Not one great beneficent statute has been placed on 
our statute books without his intelligent and powerful aid. He aided 
these men to fbrmulate the laws that raised our great armies and carried 
us through the war. His hand was seen in the workmanship of those 
statutes that restored and brought back the unity and married calm of 
the States. His hand was in all that great legislation that created the 
war currency, and in a greater work that redeemed the prc'nises of the 
Goverument, and made the currency equal to gold. And when, at last, 
called from the halls of legislation into a high executive office, he dis- 
played that ex})erience, intelligence, firmness, and poise of character 
wliich has carried us through a stormy period of three years. With one- 
half the public press crying 'Crucify him!' and a hostile Congress seeking 
to prevent success — in all this he remained unmoved until victoiy crowned 
him. 

" The great fiscal affairs of the nation and the great business interests 
of the country be has guarded and preserved, w^hile executing the law 
of resiunption and eflTectiug its object without a jar, and against the 
false prophecies of one-half of the press and all the Democracy of this 
continent. He has shown himself able to meet with calmness the great 
emergencies of tlie Government for twenty-five years. He has trodden 
the perilous heights of public duty, and against all the shafts of malice 
has borne his breast unharmed. He has stood in the blaze of 'that fierce 
light that beats against the throne,' but its fiercest ray has found no flav/ 
in his armor, no stain on his shield. 

"I do not present him as a better Republican, or as a better man than 
thousands of others we honor, but I pi-eseut him for your deliberate con- 
sideration. I nominate John Sherman, of Ohio." 

The addresses of Conkling and Garfield are given here, that the 
reader may contrast these two great leaders at their best. Gar- 
field's speech made a profound impression, not only on the Con- 
vention, but on the country, — and strengthened the already 
powerful sentiment in favor of making himself the nominee. 

Edmunds and Washburne were the only other nominations 
proposed. They, with Sherman, were minor candidates, whose 
only hope lay in the enmity of the Grant and Blaine factions, 
whose evenly-balanced powers would prevent the success of either. 

At twelve o'clock the Convention adjourned over till Monday^ 



438 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. ■ 

— but not for a Sabbath of repose ! On Sunday very few of the 
delegates found time for church, but devoted the day to mustering 
forces, polishing arms, and a general preparation for the battle of 
the ballots on Monday. Of the group of great men who led these 
hosts of enthusiasts, Garfield was one of the very, very few, who 
attended religious worship. Bound by the good habit of Sabbath 
observance, he went his solitary way to a little congregation of 
Disciples, where the tumult and turmoil of the time was smoothed 
away in peaceful contemplation of the eternal. 

A bright, cool, and delightful morning made the Convention 
open pleasantly on Monday, and at half-past ten the Hall was 
filled with an immense crowd, made up largely of ladies, come 
to see the climax of this great battle, and to be in at the finish. 
The Blaine men were confident. Grant's followers were not so 
confident, but still determined. All were hopeful, as the uncer- 
tain always may possibly favor us, and most men believe in the 
luck of their own stars. 

On motion, when called to order, the roll of States was called 
for the first ballot, which appeal's in full on the opposite page. 

After this vote it became evident that there would be no imme- 
diate choice, and with a long breath of resignation to its fate, the 
multitude settled down to a prospectively long siege. There were 
twenty-eight successive ballots taken, when the day's work ended, 
and still no choice. 

On Tuesday, June 8, the sixth and last day of the Convention, 
the great work of nomination was completed. " It was done, and 
well done." We give the work of the day somewhat in detail : 

On the twenty -ninth ballot Sherman's vote suddenly went up 
from 91 on the previous ballot to 110, This resulted from a 
change in Massachusetts, which broke for him to the extent of 
twenty -one votes. On the thirtieth he reached his best vote, 120, 
and then steadily sank to 99 on the thirty-fifth ballot. 

Finally that wonderful Grant column of three hundred and five, 
which had stood so nobly by their great candidate for many hours, 
began to gain. Pennsylvania gave him an increase, and on the 
thirty-fourth ballot he had 312 votes. It then became evident 
that the anti-Grant factions must combine at once, or be beaten. 



THE CLIMAX OF ISSO.-TIIE FIEST BALLOT. 439 

FIRST VOTE. 



STATES. 


Q 

1 


2*. 


'2 
g 


f 

P 


g 




Alabama .... 


12 


1 


3 
















California 


12 












6 












3 

G 




7 


2 




Delaware 


,s 

6 
24 

1 




Florida 












8 
10 
26 
22 
~6 

1 

2 
14 

7 

"21" 


8 
2 








Illinois 


8 
1 






Indiana 






Iowa. 


1 




■4 
20 

8 












3 
6 
























Maivland , . 


3 
1 


2 
2 








^Massachusetts 




20 




Michii^ran 












10 





29 


4 


6 
















Nthraska 


6 

6 

10 

16 

17 

...... 

6 
23 

8 

'"e" 
2 




















New Hampshire 












Xew Jersey 




'"2" 
14 
34 








iS'ew York 


51 
6 






North Carolina 








Oliio 




1 












32 


3 








Ehode Island 










13 
16 
11 


1 
1 
2 










...... 


1 




Texa-^ 




Vermont 


10 




Virii;inia 


18 
1 
1 


3 

8 
7 
2 
1 
2 
2 

1 

2 

1 
1 


1 














Wisconsin 


3 














District of Columbia . 


1 










Montana 










New Mexico 












Utah 


1 










^Vasllington 










Dakota! 


1 










Idaho 










Wyoming 


1 


















Total 


304 


2S4 


93 


30 


34 


10 



440 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

It was at this jioint that "Wisconsin pointed them the way to 
victory. Garfield's manly course in the Convention had cre- 
ated a favorable impression on all sides, the result of which in 
the Wisconsin delegation was that he was freely talked of for 
second choice. They held no caucus, and during the night of 
Monday were anxiously waiting to see some other State make the 
break for Garfield. After the adjournment on Monday night the 
matter was talked up in the delegation, and it was agreed that, if 
no other solution offered itself within three or four ballots, the 
delegation would throw its solid strength to Garfield, No con- 
sultation was had on the subject with the other leaders, as it was 
intended to operate as a feeler, Wisconsin being among the last 
States called on the roll. The result of this feeler is now a 
matter of history. The thirty-fifth ballot developed a Garfield 
strength of 50 votes. 

Amid the most intense excitement another call was ordered. It 
was Grant or Garfield — which? 

Here General Garfield rose to a question of order. He chal- 
lenged the vote on the ground that votes had been given for him 
without his consent, which consent he absolutely refused to give. 
The point was overruled. The roll call proceeded. When Con- 
necticut was reached, eleven of the twelve votes were given for 
Garfield. This was the bemnnina- of the excitement. Then Illinois 
gave seven votes for Garfield, followed by Indiana with twenty- 
nine votes. Next came Iowa, which had voted for Blaine on 
every ballot, with its full twenty-two votes for Garfield. When 
Maine was reached it voted for Garfield. This settled the ques- 
tion, Blaine was out of the field, and Garfield was speedily 
nominated. Vermont, Edmunds' State, gave a solid vote for 
Garfield, 

At this point the people could no longer be controlled. The 
breeze had grown into a storm of enthusiasm. Delegates crowded 
around Garfield ; the people in the galleries, ignoring the lines 
that had divided them, cheered and waved their hats and hand- 
kerchiefs. In this 10,000 people were engaged. It was taken up 
]>y almost as many people on the outside, where cannon were also 



THE CLIMAX OF ISSO.— GARFIELD AND ARTHUR. 441 

discharged. The scene was one that M'ill not soon be forgotten 
by those who were present. Republicans, without regard to pre- 
vious differences, felt and acted as if a great and crushing weight 
had been removed, and as if they had safely emerged from an 
impending danger — a danger that threatened the very existence 
of the party. 

The result was read out as follows: "Whole number of votes, ' 
755; necessary to a choice, 378; Grant, 306; Elaine, 42; Sher- 
man, 3; Washburne, 5; Garfield, 399. 

There was immense cheering, and the Chairman found it diffi- 
cult to restore order. But order being secured, he said: "James 
A Garfield is nominated for President of the United States.'' 

In the midst of all this, Garfield sat deeply moved. He was 
overwhelmed. Loud calls of " Platform " and " Speech " were 
unheard by him, and he sat silently in the heart of the hurricane 
which had caught him up. 

As soon as a hearing could be obtained, Mr. Conkling arose, 
and, after a few remarks on the subject of unity and harmony, and 
in praise of the nominee, moved that the nomination be made 
unanimous. This motion Avas seconded, with warm pledges of sup- 
port, by several distinguished gentlemen, previous leaders of fac- 
tions, now leaders of a united and satisfied political party. 

At half- past two o'clock the Convention adjourned to meet again 
at seven in the evening. In view of the fact that the man nom- 
inated for the second place on the National ticket was, in fact, a 
future president, it may be well to give this closing session a pass- 
ing notice. 

AVhen the time of reassembling came, business was begun at 
once. The principal names presented for Vice-President were : 
Elihu B. Washburne, of Illinois ; Marshall Jewell, of Connecticut ; 
and Chester A. Arthur, of New York. On the first and only 
ballot the New York gentleman received 468 votes to 288 for all 
others. A vote to make the romination unanimous carried with a 
good will, and Garfield and Arthur were at last before the country 
on their records and their characters, both to be approved and both 
to be elected. 



442 



LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 



The following table gives the results of each ballot in the well- 
contested struggle, of which this brief chronicle has been trying to 
tell the story: 



BALLOT*. 


9 

5 




CO 

g 


5 


s 

3 


10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
10 
7 
4 
3 
3 
4 
4 






»-r< 
; 


Q 


< 
o 


2 


First 


304 
305 
305 
305 
305 
305 
305 
306 
308 
305 
3Q5 
304 
305 
305 
309 
30(3 
303 
.305 
305 
308 
305 
305 
304 
305 
302 
303 
306 
307 
305 
306 
308 
309 
309 
312 
313 
306 


284 
282 
282 
281 
281 
280 
281 
284 
282 
282 
281 
283 
285 
285 
281 
283 
284 
283 
279 
276 
276 
275 
275 
279 
281 
280 
277 
279 
278 
279 
276 
270 
276 
275 
257 
42 


93 
94 
93 
95 
95 
95 
94 
91 
90 
92 
93 
92 
89 
89 
88 
88 
90 
91 
96 
93 
96 
97 
97 
93 
94 
93 
93 
91 
116 
120 

lis 

117 

no 

107 

99 

3 


30 
31 
31 
31 
31 
31 
31 
32 
32 
32 
32 
33 
33 
35 
36 
36 
36 
35 
32 
35 
35 
35 
36 
35 
35 
36 
36 
35 
35 
33 
37 
44 
44 
30 
23 
5 


34 
32 
32 
32 
32 
32 

ti 

31 
31 
31 
31 
31 
31 
31 
31 
31 
31 
31 
31 
31 
31 
31 
31 
31 
31 
31 
31 
12 
U 
11 
11 
11 
11 
11 




1 
1 
1 
1 
2 
2 

1 

2 
2 
2 
1 
1 










Third 












Fourth 

Fifth 

Sixth 


















. . 










S -venth 












Eighth 












^^inth 

Tenth 












1 
1 

1 
















Twelfth 










Thirteenth 

Fourteentii 




1 








































S venteenth 

f^ighieenth 

Ninet'H^nth 










1 














1 
1 
1 
1 
2 
2 
2 

2 

2 

2 

2 

1 

1 

1 

17 

50 

399 










1 










1 


Twcniy-iirst 

Twenty-second 

Twenty-third 

Twenty-fourth 

Twenty-fifth 

Twenty-.sixth 

Twenty-seventh 

Twenty-eighth 

Twentv-nintii 

Tiiirtietli 










1 










1 



















































































Thirtv-tirst 

Thirty-second 

Thirtv-third 

Thirty-fourth 

ThirtV-iifth 

Thirty-sixth 
















































_-_-A"— 







ca:n"dii»ate for the presidency.— policy of mum. 443 



CHAPTER XI. 

CANDIDATE FOR THE PEESIDEXCY. 

To be thus made a mark conspicuous 
For Envy's shaft and brutal prejudice — 
To hear above the loud huzzas the voice 
Of some Satanic fool's malignity 
Roaring along the wind, like a wild ass 
Braying th' Assyrian desert, and to doubt 
The applauding throng that gathers eagerly 
To share the sunshine or perchance to weave 
Some subtle scheme of selfishness, — all this 
'Is what the orators and poets call 
The crowning honor ! 

A CANDIDATE for public office has a difficult part to play 
There is constant and imminent danger that he will commit 
some blunder, and thereby put himself on the defensive. The fear 
of doing or saying something which shall put a club into the 
hands of the enemy haunts both himself and his friends. He 
is obliged to stand for some months on a high platform in the 
market-place, saying to the whole world: "Now get out your mi- 
croscopes and your telescopes ; wdth the one examine me, and with 
the other examine the heavens of my past, and see if you can't 
find something that shall make me wince — some tender spot v/hich 
you may prod and make me cry out with pain." 

Notably does a candidate for the presidency suffer from expos- 
ure to this fierce light and heat. All summer long he must be 
scrutinized and assailed. All kinds of attack he must meet with 
equanimity. Every sort of missile he must face, from the keenest>- 
barbcd arrows of analysis and satire to the vulgarest discharges 
of mud. To be angered is a sign that he is hurt ; to bear it 
without flinching is a sign of indifferent reprobacy ; to do nothing 
at all is a sign of cowardice ! Of a certainty the American people 
Will see their man. They will hear him, if he can be tortured 
into opening his mouth. To all this we must add the diabolical 
ingenuity of that inquisitor-general of the ages, the "interviewer" 
of the public press, who squeezes in, and bores, and pumps, 



444 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

and then goes away with a bucket fiUed with tlie froth of his own 
imagination. 

All the dangers of the case considered, the candidate generally 
adopts the policy of mum. He becomes pro tempore a universal 
know-nothing. He has no ideas, no thoughts, no opinions. He 
has no political preferences. He has not heard the news from 
Europe. He does not know whether the Danul)ian provinces can 
compete with the American wheat-fields or not. He has never 
heard that there is an English market f )r American beef. He has 
never read a book. His family receive the newspapers; he does 
not read them. The grave problem as to whether the Mississip})i 
runs by St. Louis he has not fully considered. The time of the 
year and the day of the week are open questions which he has not 
investigated. Such matters should be referred to the managers of 
the observatory and the bureau of statistics. Only on two tilings 
does he plant himself firmly ; to wit, the I\ icene Creed and the 
platform of his party ! 

How would General Garfield, now that he was nominated, bear 
himself before the country ? Could one who had so long been ac- 
customed to speaking out in meeting hold his peace, and assume 
the role of the typical know-nothing? The General seems not to 
have taken counsel with any body on this question, but simply to 
have made up his mind that the mum policy was pusillanimous, 
and that for himself he would continue to talk to his neigldjors 
and friends and the general public just as usual. This was, ac- 
cording to the judgment of the trimmers, an alarming decision. 
Even thoughtful politicians' were doubtful whether the outspoken, 
talking policy could be trusted. But General Garfield soon taught 
them and the country at large the useful lesson that a man can 
talk without being a fool. He began at once to converse freely 
on all proper occasions, to make little speeches to delegations of 
friends who came from nil directions to pay their res]>ects, and to 
a!)andon, both theoretically and practically, the monastic method of 
running for office. 

But let us resume the narrative. In the evening after his nom- 
inaiion the General v/as called upon at the parlors of the Grand 



CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY. -SPEECH OF ACCEPTANCE. 445 

Pacific Hotel, and iu the presence of a great company of ladies and 
gentlemen was formally notified of his nomination. Senator Hoar 
headed the committee appointed to carry the news to the nominee, 
and to receive, in due season, his response. The committee con- 
fronted General Garfield, and the distinguished chairman said: 

" General Garfield: The gentlemen present are appointed by the Na- 
tional Republican Convention, representatives of every State in the. 
Union, and have been directed to convey to you the formal cei-emonial 
notice of your nomination as the Republican candidate for the office of 
President of the United States.' It is known to you that the convention 
which has made this nomination assembled divided in opinion and in 
council in regard to the candidate. It may not be known to you with 
what unanimity of pleasure and of hopes the convention has received the 
result which it has reached. You represent not only the distinctive 
principles and opinion of the Republican party, but you represent also 
its unity ; and in the name of every State in the Union represented on 
the committee, I convey to you the assurance of the cordial support of 
the Republican party of these States at the coming election." 

At the conclusion of Senator Hoar's speech, General Garfield 
replied with great gravity and composure : 

''Mr. Chainnanand Gentlemen: I assure you that the information you 
have officially given to me brings the sense of very grave responsibility, 
and especially so in view of the fact that I was a member of your body, 
a fact that could not have existed with propriety had I had the slightest 
expectation that my name would be connected with the nomination for 
the office. I have felt, with you, great solicitude concerning the sitira- 
tion of our party during the struggle; but, believing that you are correct 
in assuring me that substantial unity has been reached in the conclusion, 
it gives me a gratification far greater than any personal pleasure your 
announcement can bring. 

"I accept the trust committed to my hands. As to the work of our 
party, and as to the character of the campaign to be entered upon, I will 
take an early occasion to reply more fully than I can properly do to 
night. 

"I thank you for the assurances of confidence and esteem you have 
presented to me, and hope we shall see our future as promising as ar:- 
indications to-night." 



446 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

As soon as the morning broke, General Garfield made prepara- 
tions for starting home. It seldom falls to the lot of man to re- 
turn home under such circumstances. He was followed by the 
eves of millions. A special car whirled him away in triumpli. 
By his side were a multitude of distinguished friends. A candi- 
date for the presidency of the United States is not likely to Maiit 
for friends. Those who accompanied General Garfield, however, 
were, for the most part, the genuine article. ]Many of them were 
his old comrades in arms ; others were prominent politicians, some 
of them, no doubt, busy in constructing the fabric of a new ad- 
ministration with themselves for possible corner-stones. 

At La Porte, Indiana, the train made a halt. That great 
organ of American noise, the brass band, came down the street 
with a multitudinous citizenship at its heels. The huzzas called 
out the General. He was introduced by Governor Foster, of 
Ohio. Then there were more huzzas, and the train rolled away. 
The same happened at South Bend, at Elkhart, at Goshen, and 
at all the other points, great and small, between Chicago and 
Cleveland. At the latter city there was an immense demonstra- 
tion. The spacious depot was crowded with an enthusiastic 
throng, that burst out with far-resounding cheers as the General's 
train came in. The city was all in a flutter, and it became evident 
that the people were up and stirring. The great Ohioan was 
driven to the hotel, and, in response to a speech of welcome, said : 

" Felloiv-citizens of my native count]) and of my State: I thank you for 
this remarkable demonstration of your good-will and enthusiasm on this 
occasion. I can not at this time proceed upon any speech. All that I 
have to say is, that I know that all this demonstration means your glad- 
ness at the unity and harmony and good feeling of a great political party, 
and in part your good feeling toward a neighbor, an old friend. For 
all of these reasons I thank you, and bid you good night." 

The following day, the 10th of June, was passed at Cleveland, 
and on the morrow General Garfield visited his old school at 
Hiram. The commencement exercises were set for that day. and 
the distinguished nominee was under promise to speak. Here 
were gathered his old friends and neighbors. Here he had first 



CANDIDATE FOR THE PPwESIDENCY.— SPEECH AT HIRAM. 447 

met his wife. She, with the boys, Avas now a part of her hu.-imnd's 
audience. Here was the scene of his early struggles for discipline 
and distinction. Here he had been a bell-ringer, a student, a col- 
lege professor, a president. Here he had seen the horizon of his 
orphanage and boyhood sink behind him, and the horizon of an 
auspicious future rise upon his vision. Before the vast throng of 
visitors and students, at the appointed hour, he rose and delivered 
his address as follows : 

"Fellow-citizens, old neighbors and frieruls of many years: It has always 
given me pleasure to come back here and look upon these fiices. It ha^ 
always given me new courage and new friends, for it has brought back a 
large share of that richness which belongs to those things out of which 
come the joys of life. 

"While sitting here this afternoon, watching your faces and listening 
to the very interesting address which has just been delivered, it has 
occurred to me that the least thing you have, that all men have enough 
of, is perhaps the thing that you care for the least, and that is your 
leisure — the leisure you have to think; the leisure you have to be let 
alone; the leisure you have to throw the plummet into your mind, and 
sound the depth and dive for things below; the leisure you have to walk 
about the towers yourself, and find how strong they are or how weak 
they are, to determine what needs building up; how to work, and how 
to know all that shall make you the final beings you are to be. Oh, 
these hours of building ! 

"If the Superior Being of the universe would look down upon the 
world to find the most interesting object, it w'ould be the unfinished, un- 
formed character of the young man or young woman. Those behind me 
have probably in the main settled this question. Those who have 
passed into middle manhood and middle womanhood are about what 
they shall always be, and there is but little left of interest, as their char- 
acters are all developed. 

" But to your young and your yet unformed natures, no man knows 
the possibilities that lie before you in your hearts and intellects ; and, 
while you are working out the possibilities with that splendid leisur:- that 
you need, you are to be most envied. I congratulate you on your leisure. 
I commend you to treat it as your gold, as your wealth, as your treasure, 
out of which you can draw all possible treasures that can be laid down 



448 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

■when you have your natures unfolded and developed in the possibilities 
of the future. 

"This place is too full of memories for me to trust myself to speak 
upon, and I will not. But I draw again to-day, as I have for a quarter 
of a century, life, evidence of strength, confidence and affection from the 
people who gather in this place. I thank you for the permission to see 
you and meet you and greet you as I have done to-day." 

After this reunion with his old friends at Hiram, General Gar- 
field, was, on the morning of the 12th of June, driven to Mentor 
and Paiuesville. At both places he was received with great en- 
thusiasm, and at the latter place, in response to the speech of 
welcome, made the following characteristic address : 

" FcUoiv-citizens and neighbors of Lake County: I am exceedingly glad 
to know that you care enough to come out on a hot day like this, in the 
midst of your busy work, to congratulate me. I know it comes from the 
hearts of as noble a people as lives on the earth. [Cheers.] In my 
somewhat long public services there never has been a time, in however 
great difficulties I may have been placed, that I could not feel the 
strength that came from resting back upon the people of the Nineteenth 
District. To know that they were behind me with their intelligence, 
their critical judgment, their confidence and their support was to make 
me strong in every thing I undertook that was right. I have always 
felt your sharp, severe, and just criticism, and my worthy, noble, sup- 
porting friends always did what they believed was right. I know you 
have come here to-day not altogether, indeed not nearly, for my sake, 
but for the sake of the relations I am placed in to the larger constitu- 
ency of the people of the United States. It is not becoming in me to 
speak, nor shall I speak, one word touching politics. I know you are 
here to-day without regard to politics. I know you are all here as my 
neighbors and my friends, and, as such, I greet you and thank you for 
this candid and gracious welcome. [Cheers.] Thus far in my life I 
have sought to do what I could according to my light. More than that 
I could never hope to do. All of that I shall try to do, and if I can 
continue to have the good opinion of my neighbors of this district, it 
will be one of my greatest satisfactions. I thank you again, fellow- 
citizens, for this cordial and generous welcome." [Aj)plause and cheers.] 



iiiiii iiii'i iiii nil 'i mill "'"Ml! 






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RECEPTION TO GEX. GARFIELD AFTER THE XOMIXATION. 




MOTHER OF FKESIHENT GARFIELD, 



CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY.— AT WASHINGTON. 449 

After some days of rest at his home, General Garfield repaired 
to Washington City, where he arrived on the 15th day of June. 
Everywhere along the route the railway stations and towns were 
croAvdcd with people, anxious to catch a glimpse and hear a word 
from the probable President. Arriving at the Capital, he was, on 
the evening of the 16th, serenaded at his hotel, and, responding 
to the cheers of the crowd, ap^jeared on the balcony and made the 
following happy speech : 

"Fellow-citizens: While I have looked upon this great array, I believe 
I have gotten a new idea of the majesty of the American people. When 
I reflect that wherever you find sovereign jwwer, every reverent heart 
on this earth bows before it, and when I remember that here for a hun- 
dred years we have denied the sovereignty of any man, and in place of 
it we have asserted the sovereignty of all in place of one, I see before 
me so vast a concourse that it is easy for me to imagine that the rest of 
the American people are, gathered here to-night, and if they were all 
here, every man would stand uncovered, all in unsandaled feet in presence 
of the majesty of the only sovereign power in this Government under 
Almighty God. [Cheers.] And, therefore, to this great audience I pay 
the respectful homage that in part belongs to the sovereignty of the 
people. I thank you f )r this great and glorious demonstration. I am 
not, for one moment, misled into believing that it refers to so poor a thing 
as any one of our number. I know it means your reverence for your 
Government, your reverence for its laws, your reverence for its institu- 
tions, and your compliment to one who is placed for a moment in relations 
to you of peculiar importance. For all these reasons I thank you. 

I can not at this time utter a word on the subject of general politics. 
I would not mar the cordiality of this welcome, to which to some extent 
all are gathered, by any reference except to the present moment and its- 
significance; but I wish to say that a large portion of this assemblage 
to-night are my comrades, late of the war for the Union. For them I 
can speak with entire propriety, and can say that these very streets heard 
the measured tread of your disciplined feet, years ago, when the imperiled 
Republic needed your hands and your hearts to save it, and you came 
back with your numbers decimated; but those you left behind were 
immortal and glorified heroes forever ; and tliose you brought back came, 
carrying under tattered banners and in bronze hands the ark of the covenant 
29 



450 



LIFE OF JAMES A. GAKFIELD. 



of your Republic in safety out of the bloody baptism of the war [cheers], 
and you brought it in safety to be saved forever by your valor and the 
wisdom of your brethren who were at home; and by this you were ajrain 
added to the great civil army of the Republic. I greet you, comrades 
and fellow-soldiers, and the great body of distinguished citizens Avho are 
gathered here to-night, who are the strong stay and support of the 
business, of the prosperity, of the peace, of the civic ardor and glory of 
the Republic, and I thank you for your welcome to-night. It was said 
in a welcome to one who came to England to be a part of her glory — and 
all the nation spoke when it was said: 

" ' Normans and Saxons and Danes are we. 
But all of us Danes in our welcome of thee.' 

"And we say to-night, of all nations, of all the people, soldiers and 
civilians, there is one name that welds us all into one. It is the name of 
American citizen, under the union and under the glory of the fl;ig that 
led us to victory and to peace. [Applause.] For this magnificent wel- 
come I thank you with all there is in my heart." 




Ml ^\ oi ^f^^To^ 



On the next evening after this address, General Garfield was 
given a reception and banquet, at which were present many of the 
most distinguished men of the nation. Then, after a brief stay at 
Washington, he returned to Mentor, hoping to enjoy a respite 
from the excitements of the hour. But there w^as little hope of 
rest for one who by the will of the millions had thus been whirled 
into the blazing focus of expectation. 



CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY.— PAINESVILLE. 451 

On the 3d of July the Soldiers' ISIomiment at Painesville, Ohio, 
was formally dedicated. General Garfield was present on the 
occasion, and after the principal oration, was called upon to speak. 
His address created great enthusiasm, especially among the vet- 
erans, who were gathered in great numbers to hear their old 
leader. General Garfield said; 

^'Fellow-citizens: I can not fail to respond on such an occasion, in sight 
of such a monument to such a cause, sustained by such men. [Applause 
and cheers.] While I have listened to what my friend has said, two 
questions have been sweeping through my heart. One was, ' What does 
the monument mean?' and the other, 'What will the monument teach?' 
Let nie try and ask you for a moment, to help me answer what does the 
monument mean. Oh! the monument means a world of memories, a 
world of deeds, and a world of tears, and a world of glories. You know, 
thousands know, what it is to offer up your life to the country, and that 
is no small thing, as every soldier knows. Let me put the question to 
you: For a moment suppose your country in the awfully embodied form 
of miijestic law, should stand above you and say: *I want your life. 
Come up here on the platform and offer it.' How many would walk up 
before that majestic presence and say, ' Here I am^ take this life and use 
it for your great needs.' [Applause.] And yet almost two millions of 
men made that answer [applause], and a monument stands yonder to com- 
memorate their answer. That is one of its meanings. But, my friends, 
let me try you a little further. To give up life is much, for it is to give 
up wife, and home, and child, and ambiticm. But let me test you this 
way further. Suppose this awfully mnjestic form should call out to you, 
and say, *I ask you to give up health and drag yourself, not dead, but 
half alive, through a miserable existence for long years, until you perish 
and die in your crippled and hopeless condition. I ask you to volunteer 
to do that,' and it calls for a higher reach of patriotism and self-sacrifice; 
but hundreds of thousands of you soldiers did that. That is what the 
monument means also. But let me ask you to go one step further. Sup- 
pose your country should say, 'Come here, on this platform, and in my 
name, and for my sake, consent to be idiots. [Voice — Hear, hear.] 
Consent that your very brain and intellect shall be broken down into 
hopeless idiocy for my sake.' How many could be found to make that 
venture ? And yet there are thousands, and that with their eyes wide 
open to the horrible consequences, obeyed that call. 



452 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

"And let me tell hosv one hundred thousand of our goldi'ers were 
prisoners of war, and to many of them when deatlj uas stalking near, 
when famine was climbing up into their hearts, and idiocy was threatening 
all that was left of their intellects, the gates of their prison stood open 
every day, if they would quit, desert their flag and enlist under the flag 
of the enemy; and out of one hundred and eighty thousand not two ])er 
cent, ever received the liberation from death, starvation and all that 
might come to them; but they took all these horrors and all these suffer- 
ings in preference to going back upon the flag of their country and the 
glory of its truth. [Applause.] Great God ! was ever such measure of 
patriotism reached by any men on this earth before ? [Applause.] That 
is what your monument means. By the subtle chemistry that no man 
knows, all the blood that was shed by our brethren, all tl.e lives that 
were devoted, all the grief that Avas felt, at last crystallized itself into 
granite rendered immortal, the great truth for which they died [applause], 
and it stands there to-day, and that is what your monunjcnt means. 

"Kow% what does it teach ? What Iv'ill it teach ? Why, I remember 
the story of one of the old conquerors of Greece, who, when he had 
traveled in his boyhood over the battle-fields where Miltiades had won 
victories and set up trophies, returning said ; 'These trophies of Milti- 
ades will never let me sleep.' ' Why? Something had taught him from 
the chiseled stone a lesson that he could never forget; and, fellow-citizens^ 
that silent sentinel, that crowned granite column, will look down upon 
the boys that will walk these streets for generations to come, and will 
not let them sleep when their country calls them. [Applause.] More 
than from the bugler on the field, from his dead lips will go out a cali 
that the children of Lake County will hear after the grave has covered 
us and our immediate children. That is the teaching of your njonu- 
ment. That is its lesson, and it is the lesson of endurar'ce for what we 
believe, and it is the lesson of sacrifices for what we thmk — the lesson 
of heroism for what we mean to sustain — and that lesson can not be 
lost to a people like this. It is not a lesson of revenge ; it is not a lesson; 
of wrath; it is the grand, sweet, broad lesson of the immortality of the 
truth that we hope will soon wver, as the grand Shekinah of light and 
glory, ail parts of this Republic, from the lakes to the gulf. [Ap- 
plause.] I once entered a house in old Massachnsetts, where, over its- 
doors, were two crossed swords. One was the sword carried by the- 
grandfather of its owner on.' the field of Bunker Hill, and the other was 



CA^'DIDATE FOR PRESIDENCY.— LETTER OF ACCEPTANCE. 453 

the sword carried by the English grand sire of the wife, on the same 
field, and on the other side of the conflict. Under those crossed swords, 
in the restored harmony of domestic peace, livetl a happy, and con- 
tented, and free family, under the light of our republican liberties. [A{> 
plause.] I trust the time is not far distant when, under the crossed 
sword- ami the locked shields of Americans North and South, our peo- 
ple shall sleep in peace, and rise in liberty, love, and harmony under 
the union of our flag of the Stars and Stripes." 

The next public utterance of General Garfield had been anx- 
iously awaited. Until now he had not found time to return a 
formal answer to the committee, whose chairman had, on the even- 
ing of the 8th of June, informed him of his nomination for the 
Presidency. On the l"2th of July, the General, from his home a± 
Mentor, issued his letter of acceptance. It was a document of con- 
siderable length, touching upon most of the political questions of 
the day, and gave great satisfaction to his party throughout the 
Union. The letter was as follows : 

" Mentor, Ohio, July 10th, 18S0. 

^^ Dear Sir: On the evening of the 8th of June last I had the honor to 
receive from you, in the presence of the committee of which you were 
chairman, the official announcement that the Republican National Con- 
vention at Chicago had that day nominated me for their candidate for 
President of the United States. I accept the nomination with gratitude 
for the confidence it implies and with a deep sense of the responsibilities 
it imposes. I cordially indorse the principles set forth in the platform 
adopted by tiie convention. On nearly all the subjects of which it treats 
my opinions are on record among the published proccf^dings of Congress. 
I venture, however, to make special mention of some of the principal 
topics which are likely to become subjects of discussion, without reviewing 
the controversies whi(!h have been settled during the hist twenty years, 
and with no purpose or wish to revive the passions of the late war. 

It should be said that while Republicans fully recognize and will 
strenuously defend all the rights retained by the people and all tlie 
rights reserved to the States, they reject the pernicious doctrine of State 
supremacy, Avhich so long crippled the functions of the National Gov- 
ernment and at one time brought tlie Union very near to destruction. 
They insist that the United States is a nation, with ample power of s'lf- 



454 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

preservation ; that its Constitution and the hiws made in pursuance thereof 
are the supreme law of the laud ; that the right of the nation to deter- 
mine the method by which its own legislature shall be created can not 
be surrendered without abdicating one of the fundamental powers of the 
Government; that the national laws relating to the election of repre- 
sentatives in Congiess shall neither be violated nor evaded ; that every 
elector shall be permitted freely and without intimidation to cast his 
lawful ballot at such election and have it honestly counted, and that the 
potency of his vote shall not be destroyed by the fraudulent vote of any 
other person. The best thoughts and eneigies of our people should be 
directed to those gieat questions of national well-being in which we all 
have a common intei-est. Such efforts will soonest restore perfect peace 
to those who were lately in arms against each other, for justice and good- 
will will outlast passion ; but it is certain tliat the wounds can not be 
completely healed and the spirit of brotherhood can not fidly pervade 
the whole country until every one of our citizens, rich or })oor, white or 
black, is secure in the free and equal enjoyment of every civil and polit- 
ical right guaranteed by the Constitution and the laws. Wherever the 
enjoyment of this right is not assured, discontent will prevail, immigra- 
tion will cease, and the social and industrial forces will continue to be 
disturbed by the migration of laborers and the consequent diminution 
of prosperity. The National Government should exercise all its consti- 
tutional authority to put an end to these evils, for all the people and all 
the States are members of one body; and no member can suffer without 
injury to all. 

"The most serious evils which now afflict the South arise from the 
fact that there is not such freedom and toleration of political opinion 
and action that the minority party can exercise an effective and whole- 
some restraint upon the party in power. Without such restraint party 
rule becomes tyrannical and corrupt. The prosperity which is made 
possible in the South, by its great advantages of soil and climate, Avill 
never be realized until every voter can freely and safely support any 
party he pleases. Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular 
education, without which neither justice nor freedom can be permanently 
maintained. Its interests are intrusted to the States and the voluntary 
action of the people. Whatever help the nation can justly afford should 
be generously given to aid the States in supporting common schools; 
but it would be unjust to our people and dangerous to our institutions 



CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENCY.— LETTER OF ACCEPTANCE. 455 

to apply any portion of the revenues of the nation or of the States to 
the support of sectarian schools. The separation of the Church and the 
State in eveiy thing relating to taxation should be absolute. 

On the subject of national finances my views have been so frequently and 
fully expressed that little is needed in the way of additional statement. 
The public debt is now so well secured, and the rate of annual interest has 
been so reduced by refunding, that rigid economy in expenditures and 
the faithful application of our surplus revenues to the payment of the 
principal of the debt, will gradually but certainly free the people from 
its bui'dens, and close with honor the financial chapter of the war. At 
the same time the Government can provide for all its ordinary expendi- 
tures, and discharge its sacred obligations to the soldiers of the Union 
and to the widows and orphans of those who fell in its defense. The 
resumption of specie payments, which the Republican party so coura- 
geously and successfully accomplished, has removed from the field of 
controversy many questions that long and seriously disturbed the credit 
of the Government and the business of the country. Our paper cur- 
rency is now as national as the flag, and resumption has not only made 
it everywhere equal to coin, but has brought into use our store of g(jld 
and silver. The circulating medium is more abundant than ever before, 
and we need only to maintain the equality of all our dollars to insure to 
labor and capital a measure of value from the use of which no one can 
suffer loss. The great prosperity which the country is now enjoying 
should not be endangered by any violent change or doubtful financial 
experiments. 

"In reference to our custom laws, a policy should be pursued which 
will bring revenues to the Treasury, and will enable the labor and cap- 
ital employed in our great industries to compete fairly in our own mar- 
kets with the labor and capital of foreign producers. We legislate for 
the people of the United States, not for the whole world ; and it is our 
glory that the American laborer is more intelligent and better paid than 
his f )reign competitor. Our country can not be independent unless its 
people, with their abundant natural resources, possess the requisite skill 
at any time to clothe, arm, and equip themselves for war, and in time 
of peace to produce all the necessary implements of labor. It was the 
manifest intention of the founders of the Government to provide for the 
common defense, not by standing armies alone, but by raising among 
the people a greater army of artisans, whose intelligence and skill should 
powerfully contribute to the safety and glory of the nation. 



456 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

Fortunately for the interests of commerce there is no longer any for- 
midable opposition to appropriations for the improvement of our harbors 
and great navigable rivers, provided that the expenditures for that pur- 
pose are strictly limited to works of national importance. The Mississippi 
River, ■with its great tributaries, is of such vital importance to so many 
millions of people that the safety of its navigation requires exceptional 
consideration. In order to" secure to the nation the control of all its 
Avaters, President Jefferson negotiated the purchase of a vast territory, 
extending from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean. The Avisdom 
of Congress should be invoked to devise some plan by which that -great 
river shall cease to be a terror to those who dwell upon its banks, and 
by which its shipping may safely carry the industrial products of twenty- 
five millions of people. 

" The interests of agriculture, which is the basis of all our material 
prosperity, and in Avhich seven-twelfths of (uir population are engaged, 
as well as the interests of manufactures and commerce, demand that the 
facilities tor cheap transportation shall be increased by the use of all our 
great water courses. The material interests of this country, the tradi- 
tions of its settlement and the sentiment of our people, have led the 
Government to offer the widest hospitality to immigrants who seek our 
shores for new and happier homes, willing to share the buidens as well 
as the benefits of our society, and intending that their posterity shall 
become an undistinguishable part of our population. The recent move- 
ment of the Chinese to our Pacific coast partakes but little of the qual- 
ities of such an immigration, either in its purposes or its result. It is 
too much like an importation to be welcomed without restriction; too 
much like an invasion to be looked upon without solicitude. We can 
not consent to allow any form of servile labor to be introduced among 
us under the guise of immigration. Recognizing the gravity of this 
subject, the present administration, supported by Congress, has sent to 
China a commission of distinguished citizens for the purpose of securing 
such a modification of the existing treaty as will prevent the evils likely 
to arise from the present situation. It is confidently believed that these 
diplomatic negotiations will be successful without the loss of .that com- 
mercial intercourse between the two great powers which promises a great 
increase of reciprocal trade and the enlargement of our markets. Should 
these efforts fail, it will be the duty of Congress to mitigate the evils 
already felt, and prevent their increase by such restrictions as, without 



CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENCY.— LETTER OF ACCEPTANCE. 457 

violence or injustice, will pL^ce upon a sure foundation the peace of our 
communities and the freedom and dignity of labor. 

*'Thc a[)pointment of citizens to the various executive and judicial 
offices of tlie Government is, perhaps, the most difficult of all duties 
which the Constitution has imposed upon the Executive. The conven- 
tion wisely demands that Congress shall cooperate with the Executive 
Department in placing the civil service on a better basis. Experience 
has proved that, with our frequent changes of administration, no system 
of reform can be made effective and permanent without the aid of legis- 
lation. Ai)pointments to the military and naval service are so regulated 
by law^ and custom, as to leave but little ground of complaint. It may 
not be wise to make similar regulations by law for the civil service, but, 
without invading the authority or necessary discretion of the Executive, 
Congress should devise a method that will determine the tenure of office, 
and greatly reduce the uncertainty which makes that service so uncer- 
tain and unsatisfixctory. AVithout depriving any officer of his rights as 
a citizi'U, the Government should require him to discharge all his official 
duties with intelligence, efficiency, and faithfulness. To select wisely 
from our vast population those who are best fitted for the many offices 
to be fille.l, requires an acquaintance far beyond the range of any one 
man. The Executive should, therefore, seek and receive the informa- 
tion and assistance of those whose knowdedge of the communities in 
which the duties are to l)e performed., best qualifies them to aid in mak- 
ing the wisest choice. The doctrines announced by the Chicago Con- 
vention are not the temporary devices of a party to attract votes and 
carry an election. They are deliberate convictions, resulting from a 
careful study of the spirit of our institutions, the events of our history, 
and the best impulses of our people. In my judgment, these principles 
should control the legislation and administration of the Government. In 
any event, they will guide my conduct until experience points out a 
better way. If elected, it will be my purpose to enforce strict obedience 
to the Constitution and the laws, and to promote as best I may the in- 
terest and honor of the whole country, relying for support upon the wis- 
dom of Congress, the intelligence and patriotism of the people, and the 
favor of God. 

"With great respect, I am very truly yours, i 

"J. A. Garfield. 
"To Hon. Geo. F. Hoar, Chairman of the Committee.-' 



458 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

The battle was now fliirly on. The Democracy had, on tho 
23d day of June, in convention at Cincinnati, nominated as their 
standard-bearer the distinguished and popular soldier, Major- 
Geueral Winfield S. Hancock. This nomination was received by 
the General's party with as much satisfaction and enthusiasm as 
that of General Garfield had been by the Republicans. Mean- 
while, General James B. Weaver, of Iowa, had been chosen to 
make the race by the National party, in a convention held in 
Chicago, on the 9th of June. So that there were presented for 
the suffrages of the people three eminent soldiers — all men of large 
abilities, undoubted patriotism, and thorough soundness of char- 
acter. It was evident, however, from the opening of the campaign, 
that the contest was narrowed, to Generals Garfield and Hancock, 
with the chances in favor of the former; and as the public mind 
became warmed up to the pitch of battle, the chances of Garfield 
were augmented by almost every incident of the fight. The plat- 
forms of the two parties had both been made with a view to 
political advantage rather than to uphold any distinctive prin- 
ciples. So the fight raged backwards along the line of the history 
and traditions of the two parties rather than forward along the 
line of the living political issues of the present and the future. In 
a modified form the old questions of the war w^ere revived and 
paraded. A delegate in the Cincinnati Convention, allowing his 
zeal to run away with his sense, had pledged a " Solid South " to 
the support of General Hancock. This sectional utterance was a 
spark dropped among the old Avar memories of the Union soldiers; 
and the politicians M'cre quick to fan the flame by suggesting that 
"a Solid South" ought to be confronted by "a Solid North." This 
line of argument, of course, meant ruin to the Democracy. The 
Republican leaders virtually abandoned the Southern States, and 
concentrated all their efforts upon the doubtful States of the 
Northern border. Indiana became a critical battle-field; and here 
the political fight was waged with the greatest spirit. Having a 
gubernatorial election in October, it was foreseen that to carry this 
doubtful State would be well nigh decisive of the contest, and to 
this end the best talent of both parties was hurried into her 



CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY.- AT GENEVA. 



459 



borders. AVliile these great movements were taking place, General 
Garfield remained^ for the most part, at his quiet home at Mentor. 




LAWNPIFLD-THF HOMF OF PEESIDtNT GARFIELD AT MENTOR 

On the 3d of August he attended the dedication ceremonies of a 
soldiers' monument at Geneva, Ohio. More than ten thousand 
people were in attendance. After the principal address of the day 
had been delivered, General Garfield was introduced, and spoke 
as follows: 

"Felloiu-citlzens, Ladies and Gentlemen: These gentlemen had no right 
to print on a paper here that 1 was to make a speech, for the types should 
always tell the truth. [A voice— They did it this time.] They have not 
done it in tliis case ; hut I can not look out upon an audience in Ashtabula 
County, recognizing so many old faces and old friends, without nt least 
making my how to them, and saying 'good-bye' before I go. I can not 
either hear such a speech as that to which I have just listened without 
thanking the man who made it [applause] and the people who enabled 
him to make it [applause], for after all no man can make a speech alone. 
It is the great human power that strikes up from a thousand hearts that 
acts upon him and makes the speech. [Applause.] It originates with 



460 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

those outside of him, if he makes one at all, and every man that has 
stood on this platform to-day has had a speech made out of him by you 
and by what is yonder on you^r square. That's the way speeches are 
inade, and if I had time to stay long enough, these forces with you might 
make one out of me. [Applause.] Ideas are the only things in the 
universe really immortal. Some people think that soldiers are chiefly 
renowned for courage. That is one of the cheapest and commonest 
qualities; we share it with the brutes. I can find you dogs and bears 
and lions that will fight, and fight to the death, and Avill tear each other. 
Do you call that warfare ? Let me tell you the diflference. Tliey are as 
courageous as any of these soldiers, if mere brute courage is what you are 
after. The difierence between them and us is this: Tigers never hold 
reunions [Uiughter] to celebrate their victories. When they have eaten 
the creature they have killed, that is the only reunion they have ever 
held. [Laughter.] Wild beasts never build monuments over their slain 
comrades. Why? Because there are no ideas behind their warfares. 
Our raco has ideas, and because ideas are immortal, if they be true, we 
build monuments to them. We hold reunions not for the dead, for there 
is nothing on all the earth that you and I can do for the dead. They are 
past our help and past our praise. We can not add more glory, and Ave 
can give them no immortality. They do not need us, but forever and 
forever more we need them. [Applause.] The glory that trails in the 
clouds behind them after their sun has set, falls with its benediction upon 
us who are left [applause], and it is to commemorate the immortality of 
the ideas for which they fought, that you assemble to-day and dedicate 
your monument, that points up toward God who leads them in the glory 
of the great world beyond. Around these ideas, under the leadership of 
these ideas, we assemble to-day, reverently to follow, reverently to acknowl- 
edge the glory they achieved and the benediction they left behind them. 
That is the meaning of an assembly, like this, and to join in it, to meet 
you, my old neighbors and constituents, to share with you the memories 
that we have heard rehearsed and the inspiration that this day points to, 
that this monument celebrates, is to me a joy, and for it I am grateful 
to you." 

Immediately after this address at Geneva, General Garfield took 
Ills departure for New York, where it had been determined to hold 
a conference of the ]irincipal Republican leaders, relative to the 
conduct of the jjcndiug campaign. The standard-bearer partic- 



CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY.— AT CHAUTAUQUA. 461 

ipatcd in the council of his friends, adding not a little hy hU 
presence and unflagging spirits to the zeal and enthusiasm of those 
upon whose eiforts so much depended. On the 7th he left the city 
for Lake Chautauqua, wiiere he had decided to spend a day at the 
great Sunday-school encampment and other lakeside resorts. He 
was received with the greatest good-will by the thousands assem- 
bled at Jamestown and Chautauqua; and on the eve of his departure 
was induced, in response to salutations and cheers^ to make the 
following brief address: 

"■FelloiV'citizens: You have done go much tome since I arrived on this 
shore, that I am quite unable to tell what sort of man I am this morning. 
[Laughter.] I had never been here, and really did not know wh:it you 
were doing. Last evening I asked Mr. Vincent, rather brusquely, to 
tell me what Chautauqua means— what your work here means — -and he 
filled me so full of your ideas that I have not yet assimilated it so as to 
be quite sure what manner of man I am since I got hold of it. But th\^ 
I see, you are struggling with one of the two great problems of civiliza- 
tion. The first one is a very old question —' How shall we get leisure?' 
That is the object of every hammer stroke, of every blow that labor has 
struck since the foundaticm of the world. [Applause.] The figlit for 
bread is a great primal fi<;ht, and it is so absorbing a strugirle that until 
one conquers to some extent he can have no leisure. We may divide 
the struggles of the human race into two chapters : First, the light to 
get leisure, and, second, what to do with our leisure when we have won 
it. It .looks to me that Chautauqua has solved the second problem. 
[Applause.] Like all blessings, leisure is a very bad thing unless it is 
well used. The man with a fortune ready made, and Nvith leisure on 
his hands, is likely to get sick of the world, sick of himself, tired of life, 
and to become a useless, wasted man. What shall you do witli your 
leisure ? I understand Cliautauqua is trying to develop new energies, 
largeness of mind and culture in a better sense, 'with the varnish 
scratched off",' as our friend, Dr. Kirkwood, says. [Applause.] We 
are getting over the fashion of painting and varnishing our native 
woods. We are getting down to the real grain, and finding whatever is 
best and most beautiful in it, and if Chautauqua is helping t(' develop 
in our people the native stuff that is in them rather than to give them 
varnish and gewgaws of culture, it is doing well. Chautauqua, there- 



4C2' LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

fore, li!\s filled me with thought, and, in addition to that, you have filled 
nie with gratitude for your kindness and for this great spontaneous greet- 
ing in early morning, earlier than men of leisure get up. [Laughter.J 
Some of thc.'^e gentlemen of the press around me looked distressed at 
the early rising by which you have compelled our wdiole party to look 
at the early sun. [Laughter.] This greeting on the lake slope toward 
the sun is very precious to me, and I thank you all. This is a mixed 
audience of citizens, and I will not offend the pro})rieties of the occasion 
by discussing controverted questions or entering upon any political dis- 
cussion. I look in the faces of men of all shades of opinion, but what- 
ever our party affiliation, I trust there is in all this audience that love 
of our beneficent institutions which makes it possible for free labor to 
earn leisure, and for our institutions to make that leisure worth some- 
thing [applause] — our Union and our institutions, under the blessing of 
equal laws, equal to all colors and all conditions, an open career for 
every man, however humble, to rise to whatever place the power of a 
strong arm, the strength of a clear head, and the aspirations of a pure 
heart can do to lift him. That prospect ought to inspire every young 
man in this vast audience. [Applause.] I heard yesterday and last 
night the songs of those who were lately redeemed from slavery, and I 
felt that there, too, was one of the great triumphs of the Republic. 
[Applause.] I believe in the efficiency of the forces that come down 
froui the ages behind us, and I wondered if the tropical sun had not 
distilled its sweetness, and if the sorrow of centuries of slavery had not 
distilled its sadness into verses, which were touching, sweet verses, to 
sing the songs of liberty as they sing them wherever they go., [Ap- 
plause.] 

"I thank that choir for the lesson they have taught me here, and now, 
fellow-citizens, thanking you all, good-bye." [Applause.] 

On the Otli of the month General Garfield returned to his home, 
Avhcre he again sought a respite from the uproar -and tumult of 
publicity which followed ,him everyMdiere. On the 2oth of Au- 
gust, a reunion of his old regiment, the Forty -second Ohio, was 
held at Ashland, and the General could but accept an invitation 
to share the occasion with his former comrades in arms. The old 
soldiers passed a resolution, declaring it an honor that their former 
Colonel had become the conspicuous man of the nation, and com- 



CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY.— AT ASHLAND. 463 

mending him to the world as a model of all soldierly virtues. He 
was elected President of the Regimental Association for the ensu- 
ing- vear, and was thereupon called out for an address. The Gen- 
eral spoke as follows : 

''Felbiv-cltlzens: This is a family gathering, a military family, for in 
war a regiment is to the army wliat a family is to the whole civilized 
com 111 unity. [Here a portion of the platform fell.] A military reunion 
without some excitement and souie accident would be altogether too 
monotonous and tame to be interesting, and in this good-natured audi- 
ence we can have a good many accidents like that and still keep quiet 
and be happy. 

"I said this is a family reunion, an assembly of the Forty-second mil- 
itary family, and it is well for us to meet here. Nineteen years ago I 
met a crowd of earnest citizens in that courtroom above stairs. Your 
bell was rung, your people came out. The teacher of your schools was 
among them. The boys of the school were there, and after we had 
talked together a little while, about our country and its imperiled flag, 
the teacher of the schools ottered himself to his country, and twenty of 
his boys with him. Tliey never went back into the school-house again-, 
but in the dark days of November, 1861, they and enough Ashland 
County boys to make one hundred went down with me to Columbus to 
join another one hundred that had gone before them from Ashland 
County, and these two hundred of your children stood in the center of 
our military family and bore these old banners that you see tattered 
before you to-day. One of them was given to our family by the ladies 
of Ashland, and Company C, from Ashland, carried it well. It was 
riddled by bullets and torn by underbrush. Flapped by the Avinds of 
rebellion, it came back tattered, as you see, but with never a stain upon 
its folds, and never a touch of dishonor upon it anywhere; and the other 
of these banners was given us by the special friends of Company A, in 
my old town of Hiram, the student company from the heart of the 
Western Reserve, and it also shared like its fellows, the fiite, and came 
home covered with the glory of the conflict. 

"We were a family, I say again, and we did not let partisan politics 
disturb us then, and we do not let i^artisanship enter our circle here 
to-day. 

"We did not quarrel about controversies outside of our great work. 
We agreed to be brethren for the Union, under the flag, against all its 



464 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

enemies everywhere, and brothers to all men who stood with us under 
the tlag to fight for the Union,, whatever their color of skin, whatever 
their previous ])olitics, whatever tlieir religion. In that spirit we Avent 
out; in that spiiit we returned; and we are glad to be in Ashland to- 
(hiy, i\)v it is one of the homes of our regiment, where we were wel- 
comed in the beginning and have always been welcome since. We are 
grateful for the welcome tendered us to-day by this great assembly of 
our old neighbors and friends of Ashland County. 

"Now, fellow-citizens, a regiment like a family has the i-Ight to be a 
■ little clannish and exclusive. It does not deny the riglit of any other 
family to the same privileges, but it holds the members of its own family 
a little nearer and a little dearer than any other family in the Avorld. 
And so the Forty-second B,egiinent has always been a band of brothers. 
I do not tliis day know a Forty-second man in the world who hates 
another Forty-second man. There never was a serious quarrel inside 
the regiment. There was never a serious disagreement between its 
officers. The worst thing I have ever heard said against it is that all 
its three field officers came home alive. And they are all here on this 
stand to-day. It was, periiaps, a little against us that no one of us had 
the honor to get killed or seriously crippled ; but we hold that it was not 
altogether our fault, and we trust that some day or other you will have 
forgiven us, if you have not to-day, for being alive and all here to- 
getlier. 

"1 want to say another thing about the soldiers' work. I know of 
nothing in all the circle of human duty that so unites men as the com- 
mon suffering and danger and struggle that war brings upon a regi- 
ment. You can not know a man so thoi'oughly and so soon as by the 
tremendous tests to which war subjects him. These men knew' each 
other by sight long before they knew each other by heart; but before 
tliey got back home they knew each other, as you sometimes say you 
know a son, 'by heart;' for they had been tested by fire; they had been 
tested by starvation; they had been tested by the grim presence of 
dcatli, and each knew that those who remained were union men; men 
that in all the hard, close chances of life, had the stuff in them that en- 
abled them to stand up in the very extremes they did; and stand up 
ready to die. And such men, so tried and so acquainted, never g«,t over 
it; and the rest of the world must permit them to be just a little clannish 
towards each other; the rest of the world will not think we are narrow 




J SI \\i M 1 ()\\^ 

GAKFlEIJl'S PKIVATE Si:( Itlll- A H 




COL. KOCKWKI.L 



CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY.— AT MENTOR. 465 

Avhen they consider this particular fault of ours ; a little closer to us than 
any of the rest of the world in a military way. 

"Now, fellow-citizens, we are here to look into your faces, to enjoy 
your hospitality, to revive our old memories of the place, but, for more 
than any thing else, to look into each other's faces, and revive old mem- 
ories of a great many places less pleasing and home-like than Ashland, 
We have been meeting together in this way for nearly fifteen years, and 
we have made a pledge to each other that as long as there are two of 
us left to shake hands, we will meet and greet the survivor. Some of us 
felt a little hurt about ten years ago when the papers spoke of us as the 
survivors of the Forty-second Regiment. We Avere survivors it was 
true, but we thought we were so surviving that it need not be put at us, 
as though we were about to die. Now, I don't know how it is with the 
rest of you. Most of mankind grow old, and you can see it in their 
faces. I see here and there a bald head, like my own, or a white one, 
like Captain Gardner's, but to me these men will be boys till they die. 
We call them boys ; we meet and greet them as boys, even though they 
become very old boys, and in that spirit of young, hopeful, daring man- 
hood we expect to meet them so long as we live. Nothing can get us a 
great way from each other while we live. I am glad to meet these men 
here to-day. [Here another portion of the platform broke down, precip- 
itating General Garfield and two or three of the reporters to the ground.] 
Continuing, he said : I am glad also that there was not any body hurt 
when that broke, and nobody made unhappy, and I will conclude all I 
Avanted to say, more than I intended to say, by adding this: These men 
went out without one single touch of revenge in their hearts. They 
went out to maintain this Union and make it immortal ; to put their own 
immortal lives into it, and to make it possible that the people of Ashland 
should make the monogram of the United States, as you see it up there 
(pointing to the monogram on the building), a wreath of Union inside 
of a very large N, a capital N, that stands for Nation, a Nation so large 
that it includes the 'U. S. A.' all the people of the Republic, and will in- 
clude it for evermore; that is what we meant then and is what we mean 
now. 

"And now, fellow-citizens and soldiers of the Forty-second Regiment — 
for I have been talking mainly to you, and if any of this crowd have 
overheard I am not particularly to blame for it — I say, fellow-citizens 
and comrades, I greet you to-day with great satisfaction and bid you a 
cordial good-bye." 
30 



466 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

Two days later General Garfield was present at a reunion of an 
artillery company, held at Mentor, and since they had composed 
a part of the force with which Thomas stayed at last the furious 
on.set at Chickamauga, their old chief of staff was all the more 
willing to say a few words for their edification. This he did as 
follows: — 

" Comrades: This is really the first time I have met this battery as an 
organization since the Sunday evening of the terrible battle of Chicka- 
mauga, nearly seventeen years ago. I last saw you there in the most ex- 
posed angle of that unfortunate line, broken by the combined forces of 
Bragg and Longstreet. I then saw you gallantly fighting under the im- 
mediate direction of General Thomas, to reform that broken line, and 
hold the exultant rebel host in check until the gallant Steedman with re- 
inforcements swept them back into the dark valley of the Chickamauga. 
I am now able to distinguish among your numbers faces which I saw there 
in that terrible hour. But how changed ! I now see you here with your 
wives, children, and friends, peaceably enjoying this grand reception of 
your friends and neighbors here assembled to honor and entertain you. 

"But nothing so attracts my attention as your young and active ap- 
pearance. It is more than eighteen years since you left for the war, and 
yet you are not old. Indeed, many of you appear almost like boys. 
This I am pleased to observe ; for if there be any men upon the face of 
the earth who deserve an extension of time, it is you who, in early man- 
hood, so freely gave your services to your country, that it might live. 
Toothing can be more proper than these annual reunions. I am aware 
of the reputation which this organization, as well as my own regiment, 
always enjoyed of unity and good fellowship among its officers and men. 
May you, therefore, continue to enjoy and perpetuate that friendship to 
the very latest hour of your lives." 

General Garfield had now to learn that the people in their ea- 
gerness, and especially the politicians in their unselfish devotion, 
had decreed him no further rest, even at Lawnfield. Pilgrimages 
to Mentor became the order of the day. For meanwhile the Oc- 
tober elections had ])een held, and all had gone triumphantly for 
the Republicans. Indiana, chief of the so-called " doubtful States," 
liad whirled into line with an unequivocal majority. Ohio had put 
a quietus on all hopes of the Democracy to carry her electoral 



CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY.— AT MENTOR. 467 

votes for Hancock. The high-blown anticipations of the friends 
of ''' the superb soldier " were shockingly shattered. And so all 
the paths of political preferment led to Mentor ; and all the paths 
were trodden by way-worn pilgrims, who, with sandal-shoon and 
scallop-shell urged their course thither to see him who was now 
their hope. On the 19th of October a train of these pilgrims, 
rather more notable than the rest, came in from Indiana. It Avas 
the Lincoln Club of Indianapolis, four hundred strong. They 
were uniformed, and wore grotesque cockades extemporized out 
of straw hats into a sort of three-cornered conspicuity. The Gen- 
eral was, none the less, greatly pleased with his visitors, and 
spared no pains to make their brief stay at Mentor a pleasure, if 
not a profit. The club was formally introduced by Captain M. G. 
McLean, and in response General Garfield said : — 

" Gentlemen: You come as bearers of dispatches, so your chairman tells 
me. I am glad to hear the oews you bring, and exceedingly glad to see 
the bringers of the news. Your uniform, the name of your club, the 
place from which you come, are all full of suggestions. You recol- 
lect the verses that were often quoted about the old Continental soldiers: 
"The old three-cornered hat and breeches, and all that were so queer." 
Tour costume brings back to our memory the days of the Continentals 
of 1776, whose principles I hope you represent. You are called the 
Lincoln Club, and Lincoln was himself a revival, a restoration of the 
days of '76 and their doctrines. The great Proclamation of Emancipa- 
tion, which he penned, was a second Declaration of Independence — 
broader, fuller, the New Testament of human liberty; and then you 
come from Indiana, supposed to be a Western State, but yet in its tradi- 
tions older than Ohio. More than one hundred years ago a gallant Vir- 
ginian went far up into your wilderness, captured two or three forts, took 
down the British flag, and reared the Stars and Stripes. Vincennes and 
Cahokia, and a post in Illinois, were a part of the capture. Your native 
State was one of the first fruits of that splendid fighting power which 
gave the Avhole West to the United States, and now these representatives 
of Indiana come representing the Revolution in your hats, rej^resenting 
Abraham Lincoln in your badges, and representing the victory both of 
the Revolution and of Lincoln in the news you bring. I could not be 
an American and fail to welcome your costumes, your badges, your news 



468 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

and yourselves. Many Indiana men were my comrades in tlie days of 
the war. I remember a regiment of them that was under my command 
near Corinth, when it seemed necessary for the defense of our forces to 
cut down a little piece of timber — seventy-five acres. We unboxed for 
my brigade about four thousand new axes, and the Fifty-first Regiment 
of Indiana Volunteers chopped down more trees in half a day than I sup- 
posed it was possible could fall in any forest in a week. It appears that 
in the great political forest from which you have just come, your axes 
have been busy again. I especially welcome the axmen of the Fifty-first 
Regiment, who may happen to be here, and thank you all, gentlemen, 
for the compliment of your visit, and for the good news you bring. I do 
not prize that news half so much for its personal relations to you and 
to me, as I do because it is a revival of the spirit of 1776, the spirit of 
Abraham Lincoln, the spirit of universal liberty, and the spirit of just 
and equal law all over this land. That gives your news its greatest sig- 
nificance. Gentlemen, I thank you again, and shall be glad to take you 
by the hand." 

After the speeches, the members of the Lincoln Club all had 
the pleasure of shaking the hand of General Garfield, and of hear- 
ing an individual welcome from his lips. 

Two days afterwards, the Cuyahoga Veteran Corps came on a 
similar pilgrimage to Lawnfiekl, and were similarly well received. 
General M, D. Leggett, commander of the corps, made the intro- 
ductory address ; and, in answer, General Garfield said : 

"Comrades: Any man that can see 'twelve hundred comrades in his 
front-door yard has as much reason to be proud as for any thing that can 
well happen to him in this world. After that has happened, he need not 
much care what else happens, or what else don't happen. To see twelve 
hundred men, from almost every regiment of the State, and from regi- 
ments and brigades and divisions of almost every other State — to see the 
consolidated field report of the survivors of the war, sixteen years after 
it is over — is a great sight for any man to look on. I greet you all with 
gratitude for this visit. Its personal compliment is great. 

'•But there is another thought in it far greater than that to me and 
greater to you. Just over yonder about ten miles, when I was a mere 
lad, I heard the first political speech of my life. It was a speech that 
Joshua R. Giddings was making. He had come home to appeal to his 



CANDIDATE FOE THE PRESIDENCY.— AT MENTOR. 469 

constituents. A Southern man drew a pistol on him while he was speak- 
ing in favor of human liberty, and marched over toward him to shoot 
him down, to stop his speech and quench the voice of liberty. I remem- 
ber but one thing that tlie old hero said in the course of that speech so 
lang ago, and it was this: 'I knew I was speaking for liberty, and I felt 
that if tlie assassin had shot me down, my speech would still go on and 
triumph.' Well, now, gentlemen, there are twelve hundred, and the 
hundred <^imes twelve hundred — the million of men that went out into the 
field of battle to fight for our Union — who felt just as that speaker felt — 
that if they should all be shot down the cause of liberty would still go on. 
You and all the Union felt that around you, and above you, and behind 
you, were a force and a cause and an immortal truth that would outlive 
your bodies and mine, and survive all our brigades and all our armies and 
all our battles. Here you are to-day in the same belief. We shall all 
die, and yet we believe that after us the immortal truths for which we 
fought will live in a united Nation, a united people against all factions, 
against all section, against all division, so long as there shall be a conti- 
nent of rivers and mountains and lakes. It was that great belief that 
lifted you all up into the heroic height of great soldiers in the war, and 
it is that belief that you cherish to-day, and carry with you in all your 
pilgrimages and in all your reunions. In that great belief, and in that 
inspiring faith, I meet you and greet you to-day, and with it we will go 
on to whatever fate has in store for us all. 

"I thank you, comrades, for this demonstration of your faith and con- 
fidence and regard for me. Why, gentlemen, this home of mine will 
never be the same place again. I am disposed to think that a man does 
not take every thing away from a place when he takes his body away. It 
was said that long after the death of the first Napoleon, his soldiers be- 
lieved that on certain anniversary days he came out and reviewed all his 
dead troops, he himself being dead ; that he had a midnight review of 
those that had fought and fallen under his leadership. That, doubtless, 
was a fiction of the imagination ; but I shall have to believe in all time 
hereafter the character and spirit and impressions of my comrades live on 
this turf, and under these trees, and in this portal ; and it will be a part 
of my comradeship in all days to come." 

On the 28th of the month a delegation of Portage County citi- 
zens; two hundred strong, headed by Judge Luther Day, of Ra- 
venna, visited Mentor, and paid the customary resjiects to him who 



470 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

was uow regarded as well nigh certain to carry away the greatest 
honor known to the American people. After the company was 
formally introduced by Judge Day, the General, in response, said : 

" Judge Day, Ladles and Gentlemen: I once read of a man who tried to 
Avear the armor and wield the sword of some ancient ancestor, but found 
tliem too large for his stature and strength. If I should try at this mo- 
ment to wear and sway the memories which your presence awakens, I 
should be overwhelmed, and wholly unable to marshal and master the 
quick-coming throng of memories which this semicircle of old friends 
and neighbors has brought to me. Here are school-fellows of twenty- 
eight years ago. Here are men and women who were my pupils a quarter 
of a century ago. Here are venerable men who, twenty one years ago, 
in the town of Kent, launched me upon the stormy sea of political life. 
I see others who were soldiers in the old regiment which I had the honor 
to command, and could I listen to the teaching and thoughtful words of 
my friend, the venerable late Chief Justice of Ohio, who has just s])oken, 
without remembering that evening in 1861, of which he spoke too mod- 
estly, Avhen he and I stood together in the old church at Hiram, and 
called upon the young men to go forth to battle for the Union, and be en- 
listed before they slept, and thus laid the foundation of the Forty-second 
Regiment? How can I forget all these things, and all that has followed? 
How can I forget tliat twenty-five years of my life Avere so braided and 
intertwined with the lives of tho people of Portage County, Avhen I see 
men and Avomen from all its townships standing at my door? I can not 
forget these things while life and conciousness remain. No other period 
of my life can be like this. The freshness of youth, the very springtide 
of life, the brightening on toward noonday — all Avere Avith you and of 
you, my neighbors, my friends, my cherished comrades, in all the relations 
of social, student, military and political life and friendship. You are here, 
so close to my heart that I can not trust myself to an attempt to marshal 
these memories Avith any thing like coherence. "" It is enough to know 
that my neighbors in Portage County, since the first day of my Congres- 
sional life, have never sent to any convention a delegate who was hostile 
to me ; that through all the storm of detraction that roared around me, 
the members of the old guard of Portage County haA-e never Avavered in 
their faith and friendship, but have stood an unbroken phalanx with their 
locked shields above my head, and have given me their hearts in every 



CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY.— THE MOREY LETTER 471 

contest. If a man can carry in his memory a jewel more precious than 
this, I am sure Judge Day has never heard what it is. 

"Well, gentlemen, on the eve of great events, cfosing a great cam- 
paign, I look into your faces and draw from you such consolation as even 
you can not understand. Whatever the event may be, our post is secure, 
and whatever may befall me hereafter, if I can succeed in keeping the 
hearts of Portage County near to me I shall know that I do not go far 
wi-ong in any thing, for they are men who love the truth for truth's sake, 
far more than they love any man. 

"Ladies and gentlemen, all the doors of my house are open to you. The 
hand of every member of my family is outstretched to you. Our hearts 
greet you, and we ask you to come in." 

In the meantime there had occurred the most remarkable episode 
of the campaign. On the 21st of October appeared in the columns 
of a New York newspaper called Truth, a letter purporting to have 
been written on the 23d of January, 1880, to one H. L. Morey, 
of Lynn, Massachusetts. The communication was ostensibly a 
reply to a letter written to General Garfield with the purpose of 
obtaining his views on the great question of the Chinese in the United 
States, and more particularly to extract his ideas on the subject of 
Chinese cheap labor. This previous supposititious letter of Morey 
was never produced, but only the alleged answer of General Gar- 
field, Avhich was as follows: 

"House of Representatives, \ 
Washington, D. C, January 23, 1880. / 

^'■Dear Sir: Yours in relation to the Chinese problem came duly to 
band. I take it that the question of employes is only a question of private 
and corporate economy. Individuals or companies have the right to buy 
labor where they can get it the cheape^^t. AVe have a treaty with the 
Chinese Government, which should be religiously kept until its provisions 
are abrogated by the action of the General Government, and I am not 
prepared to say that it should be abrogated until our great manufacturing 
interests are conserved in the matter of labor. 

Very truly 5'ours, 

"J. A. Garfield. 
" To H. L. Morey, Employers' Union, Lynn, Mass." 

It was instantly manifested, on the appearance of this letter, 



472 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 









FAC-SlillLE OF TUE MOREY LETTER. 



CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY.-GARFIELD'S DENIAL. 473 

Oji^U-ry^^'^''^-^ y€^ <^Ul^. (E^^fO^^ ..^SZe. 



FAC-SralLE OF GARFIELDS LETTER OF DENIAL, 




476 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

Biyne for publishing in the newspaper Truth a criminal libel on 
General Garfield. 

A long trial followed in the court of Oyer and Terminer, of 
New York. The suit was at first directed against the editors of 
Truth, and Philp was thus unearthed. As the trial progressed, 
although the evidence was not conclusive as to Philp's authority 
of the forgery, yet every circumstance tended to show unmistak- 
ably that the whole aifair had been a cunning conspiracy of some 
prodigious scoundrel to injure General Garfield's chances for the 
Presidency. 

The production of the letter and its envelope in court betrayed 
at once the tampering to which the latter had been subjected, and 
settled the character of the disgraceful political maneuver which 
had given it birth. The alleged forger proved to be an English 
"Bohemian" who contributed to the "story papers," and who 
confessedly wrote the editorial articles defending the genuineness 
of the letter in the under-ground journal which first published it. 
The register of the Kirtland House, at Lynn, Massachusetts, was 
produced by the defense, and the name " H. L. Morey " was 
shown there in October, 1879, and again in February of 1880. 
But there was the most complete circumstanial evidence that the 
name had been recently ^vritten on each page of the register. The 
name had, undoubtedly, been added to the hotel book in each 
instance by some one who was anxious to bolster up the fraud. 

The discovery was made that the envelope containing the forged 
letter had originally been addressed to some one else than H. L. 
Morey ; and an enlarged photographic copy of the envelope revealed 
the fact that the original name was Edward or Edwin Fox or Cox, 
in care of some company in the city of New York. And in the next 
place it was shown that Edward Fox was employed upon Truth ! 

The prosecution failed to convict the publishers of Truth of 
criminal libel ; but the country rendered again the old Scotch ver- 
dict of "Guilty — but not proved." The Presidential election, 
however, was imminent, and it is not improbable that General 
Garfield's vote on the Pacific Slope was injured by the base machi- 
nations of the Morey conspirators. 



CANDIDATE FOE THE PRESIDENCY.— ELECTED. 477 

On the 2d of November was held the Presidential election. 
The result had been foreseen. The Democracy could not stem 
the tide. The " Solid South," the unfortunate plank in their 
platform declaring in favor of " a tariif for revenue only/' and 
the Morey forgery which had been charged up to their account, 
wrought their ruin. Garfield was overwhelmingly elected. The 
morning of the 3d revealed the general outline of the result. 
For a few days it was claimed by the Republicans that they had 
carried two or three of the Southern States, but this idea was 
soon dispelled. In a like unprofitable way the Democrats set up 
certain and sundry claims for some of the Northern States. One 
day they had carried New York ; another day they had authentic 
information that California and Oregon were safe for Hancock. 
It was all in vain. The South all went Democratic, and all of 
the Northern States, except New Jersey, Nevada, and one electoral 
vote from California, had been secured by the Republicans. The 
victory was unequivocal. The humble boy of Mother Garfield 
was elected President of the United States by 214 electoral votes 
against 155 for his antagonist, General Hancock. Thus, under 
the benign institutions of our country, was conferred upon one 
who began his life in a log cabin the highest civic honor known 
among the nations of the earth. 

General Garfield spent election day at home without manifest 
excitement. In the evening, and later in the night, news began 
to arrive indicative of the result. Still no agitation. To some 
friends he said : " I have been busying myself with a calculation 
to determine the rate of voting to-day. During the hours in 
which the election has been in progress about 2000 ballots have 
dropped for every tick of the pendulum." With the morning 
light there was no longer doubt. The title of General, won on 
the bloody field of Chickamauga, had given place to that of 
President-elect, won before the grandest bar of public opinion 
under the circle of the sun. 

On the day succeeding the election, the first delegation bearing 
congratulations visited Mentor. It was composed of the Oberlin 
College faculty and students, headed by President Fairchild, and 



478 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

the occasion -was one of more than nsual interest. In reply to 
the speech of introduction, General Garfield said: 

"Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: This spontaneous visit is 
much more agreeable than a prepared one. It comes more directly 
from the heart of the jjeople who participate, and I receive it as a 
greater compliment for that reason. I do not wish to be unduly im- 
l)ressible or superstitious, but, though we have outlived the days of the 
augurs, I think we have a right to think of some events as omens ; and 
I greet this as a happy and auspicious omen, that the first general greet- 
ing since the event of yesterday is tendered to me by a venerable insti- 
tution of learning. The thought has been abroad in the world a good 
deal, and with reason, that there is a divorce between scholarship and 
politics. Oberlin, I believe, has never advocated that divorce. But 
there has been a sort of cloistered scholarship in the United States 
that has stood aloof from active participation in public affairs, and I am 
glad to be greeted here to-day by the active, live scholarship of Ohio; 
and I know of no place whex-e scholarship has touched upon the nerve 
center of the public so effectually as Oberlin. For this reason I am 
specially grateful for this greeting from the Faculty and students of 
Oberlin College and its venerable and venerated President. I thank 
you, ladies and gentlemen, for this visit. Whatever the significance of 
yesterday's event may be, it will be all the more significant for being 
immediately indorsed by the scholarship and culture of my State. I 
thank you, ladies and gentlemen, and thank your President for coming 
with you. You are cordially welcome." 

On the 6th of November the Republican Central Committee 
of Indiana repaired to Mentor and paid their respects to the 
coming Chief Magistrate ; and on the 12th of the month the Pres- 
ident, soon-to-be, was visited by the Eepublican Central Com- 
mittee of Cuyahoga County. In answer to their salutation he 
said : 

''Gentlemen: I have been saying a good many things during the past 

few weeks, and think I should be nearly through talking by this time. 

I should be the listener. But I can not refrain from saying tliat I am 

^ exceedingly glad to meet with you, a company of Republicans from suy 

jaative county, and congratulate you upon what you have done. You 



CANDIDATE FOR THE PllESIDEXCY.— THE OHIO ELECTOES. 470 

liave shown your strength and character in your work. You have 
shown that you are men of liigh convictions and observe them in all 
that you do. I have always taken pride in this county and in the city 
of Cleveland. The Forest City is well worthy to be the capital of the 
Western Reserve. It has the credit of our comitry at heart, never 
losing sight of it in the heat of political warfare. In no city in the 
country can be found more active and earnest men — solid business men. 
It is an honor to any one to have the confidence of such a people. I 
am glad to be here this evening to greet you and thnnk you for your 
kind invitation." [Applause.] 

Garfield had now more offices in prospect or actual possession 
than usually fall to the lot of one man. He was still a member 
of the House of Representatives in the Forty -sixth Congress ; he 
Avas also United States Senator-elect for the State of Ohio ; and, 
thirdly, he was President-elect of the United States. On the lOtk 
of November, he resigned his seat in the House, presently afler- 
w'ards renounced his election as Senator, and thus for about four 
months became Citizen Garfield of Ohio. 

The 2d of December was rather a Red-letter day at IMentor, 
The Presidential electors for the State of Ohio, on that day called 
on the President-elect and tendered their best regards. In answer 
to their congratulations he spoke with much animation and feel- 
ing as follows : 

^'Gentlemen: I am deeply grateful to you for this call, and for these 
personal and public congratulations. If I were to look upon the late 
campaign and its result merely in the light of a personal struggle and a 
personal success, it would probably be as gratifying as any thing could 
be in the history of politics. If my own conduct during the campaign 
has been in any way a help and a strength to our cause, I am glad. It 
is not always an easy thing to Ijehave well. If, under trying circum- 
stances, my behavior as a candidate has met your approval, I am greatly 
gratified. But the larger subject — your congratulations to the country 
on the triumph of the Republican party — opens a theme too vast for me 
to enter upon now. 

" I venture, however, to mention a reflection which has occurred to 
me in reference to the election of yesterday. I suppose that no political 



480 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

event has happened in all the course of the contest since the early spring, 
which caused so little excitement, and, indeed, so little public observa- 
tion, as the Presidential election which was held yesterday at midday. 
The American people paid but little attention to the details cf the real 
Presidential election, and for a very significant reason : although you 
and all the members of the Electoral Colleges had absolute constitu- 
tional and technical right to vote for any body you chose, and although 
no written law directed or suggested your choice, yet every American 
knew that the august sovereign of this Republic — the 9,000,000 of vot- 
ers — on an early day in November had pronounced the omnipotent fiat 
of choice; and that sovereign, assuming as done that which he had or- 
dered to be done, entertained no doubt but that his will would be im- 
plicitly obeyed by all the Colleges in all the States. That is the reason 
why the people were so serenely quiet yesterday. They had never 
yet found an American who failed to keep his trust as a Presidential 
Elector. 

" From this thought I draw this lesson : that when that omnipotent 
sovereign, the American people, speaks to any one man and orders him 
to do a duty, that man is under the most solemn obligations of obedience 
which can be conceived, except what the God of the universe might 
impose upon him. Yesterday, through your votes, and the votes of 
others in the various States of the Union, it is probable (the returns 
will show) that our great political sovereign has laid liis commands upon 
me. If he has done so, I am as bound by his will and his great inspi- 
ration and purpose as I could be bound by any consideration that this 
earth can impose upon any human being. In that presence, thei-efore, I 
stand and am awed by the majesty and authority of such a command. 

" In so far as I can interpret the best aspirations and purposes of our 
august sovereign, I shall seek to realize them. You and I, and those 
who have acted with us in the years past, believe that our sovereign 
loves liberty, and desires for all inhabitants of the Republic peace and 
prosperity under the sway of just and equal laws. Gentlemen, I thank 
you for this visit ; for this welcome ; for the suggestions that your pres- 
ence and your words bring, and for the hope that you have expressed,- 
that in the arduous and great work before us we may maintain the 
standard of Nationality and promote all that is good and Avorthy in this 
country, and during the coming four years we may raise just as large a 
crop of peace, prosperity, justice, liberty, and culture as it is possible 
for forty -nine millions of people to raise." 



CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY.— CAROLINA DELEGATION. 481 

At the close of the address there was a general hand-shaking 
a la Americaiue ; and then to add to the interest of the occasion 
the President's aged mother, to whom more than ever of lale his 
heart had turned with loyal devotion, was led into the apartment 
and presented to the distinguished guests by her more distin- 
guished son. 

Two days afterwards there was another assembly of visitors at 
Mentor. This time it was a delegation of colored Republicans — 
Black Republicans in both senses of the word — from South Car- 
olina, headed by the negro orator, R. B. Elliott, who delivered 
the congratulatory address. In answer, the President-elect said : 

^^ General Elliott and Gentlemen: I thank you for your congratulations 
on the successful termination of the great campaign that recently closed, 
and especially for your kind allusion to me personally for the part I bore 
in that campaign. 

"What I have done, what I have said concerning your race and the 
great problem that your presence on this continent has raised, I have 
said as a matter of profound conviction, and hold to \vith all the meaning 
of the words employed in expressing it. What you have said in regard 
to the situation of your people, the troubles that they encountered, the 
evils from which they have suffered and still suffer, I listened to with 
deep attention, and shall give it full measure of reflection. 

"This is not the time nor the place for me to indicate any thing as to 
what I shall have to say and do, by and by, in an official way. But 
this I may say: I noted as peculiarly significant one sentence in the re- 
marks of General Elliott, to the effect that the majority of citizens, as he 
alleges, in some portions of the South, are oppressed by the minority. 
If this be so, why is it so ? Because a trained man is two or three men 
ill one, in comparison with an untrained man; and outside of politics 
and outside of parties, that suggestion is full, brim-full, of significance, 
that tiie way to make the majority always powerful over the minority, is 
to make its members as trained and intelligent as the minority itself 
That brings the equality of citizenship ; and no law can confer and main- 
tain in the long run a thing that is not upheld with a reasonable degree 
of culture and intelligence. Legislation ought to do all it can. I have 
made tliese sug'j,estions siiii]>ly to indicate that the education of yonr race, 
in my judgment, lies at the l.'use oi' the final solution of your great (jne.i- 



482' LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

tion; and that can not bo altogether in the lumds of the State or National 
Government. The Government ought to do all it properly can, but tlie 
native hungering and thirsting for knowledge that the Creator [)laiited in 
every child, must be cultivated by the parents of those children to the 
last possible degree of thdr ability, so tliat the hands of the peo})le shall 
reach out and grasp in the darkness the hand of the Government ex- 
tended to help, and by that union of effort bring what mere legislation 
alone can not immediately bring. 

"I rejoice that you have expressed so strongly and earnestly your 
views in regard to the necessity of your education. I have felt for years 
that that was the final solution. 

"Those efforts that are humble and comparatively out of sight are, in 
the long run, the efforts that tell. I have sometimes thought that the 
men that sink a coffer-dam into the river, and work for months in an- 
choring great stones to build the solid abutments and piers, whose work 
is by and by hidden by the water and out of sight, do not get their share 
of the credit. The gaudy structure of the bridge that rests on these 
piers, and across which the trains thunder, is the thing that strikes the 
eye of the general public a great deal more than the sunken piers and 
hard work. The educational growth and the building up of industry, 
the economy and all that can help the foundations of real ]irosi)erity is 
the work that, in the long run, tells. Some Scotch poet said, or put it 
in the mouth of some prophet to say, that the time would come * when 
Bertram's right and Bertram's might shall meet on Ellengowan's height,' 
and it is when the might and the right of a people meet that major- 
ities are never oppressed by minorities. Trusting, gentlemen, that you 
may take part in this earnest work of building up your race from the 
foundation into the solidity of intelligence and industry, and upon those 
bases at last s(>e all your rights recognized, is my personal wish and hope 
for your people." 

About this time in November, the weather closed in stormy 
and cold, and, fortunately for Garfield, the tide of visitors ebbed, 
and he found a little rest. Late in the month, he made a brief 
visit to Washington, where he spent a few days among his friends 
and political advisers. After that, he returned to Mentor, and 
during December his life was passed in comparative quiet at his 
home. 



CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY.— OFF FOR WASHINGTON. 483 

No doubt in these December days the vision of his boyhood 
rose many times to view. No doubt, in the silence of the winter 
evening, by his glowing hearth at Lawnfiekl, with the wife of his 
youth by his side and the children of their love around them, and 
the certain Presidency of the Republic just beyond, he realized in 
as full measure as falls to the lot of man that strange thing which 
is called success. 

The New Year came in. Tlie bleak January — bitter cold- 
went by. On the 16th of February, the distinguished Senator 
Conkling, of New York, made a visit to the President-elect. In 
the imagination of the political busy-bodies the event was fraught 
with great consequences. It was said that the haughty stalwart 
leader was on a mission looking to the construction of the new 
administration, to seek favor for his friends, and to pledge therefor 
the support — hitherto somewhat doubted — of himself and his par- 
tisans. The interview was named the "Treaty of Mentor;" but 
the likelihood is that the treaUj consisted of no more than distin- 
guished civilities and informal discussion of the 'personnel of the 
new Cabinet, etc. A few days later the President-elect made his 
departure for Washington to be inaugurated. The special train 
which was to bear himself and family away, left Mentor on the 
28th of February. Fully three thousand people were gathered at 
the depot. Cheer after cheer was given in honor of him who had 
made the name of Mentor for ever famous. A farewell speech was 
delivered by Hon. A, L. Tinker, of Painesville, and to this the 
Chief Magistrate responded thus : 

"'Fellotv-citizens and neighbors of Lake County: I thank you for the 
cordial and kindly greeting and farewell. You have come from your 
homes than which no happier are known in this country, from this beau- 
tiful lakeside full of that which makes country life happy, to give me 
your blessing and farewell. You do not know how much I leave behind 
me of friendship, and confidence, and home-like happiness; but T know 
I am indebted to this whole people for acts of kindness, of neighborly 
friendship, of political confidence, of public support, that few men have 
ever enjoyed at the hands of any people. You are a part of this great 
coRimunity of Northern Ohio, which, fi)r so many years, have had no 



481' LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

political desire but the good of your country; and now wishing but ihe 
promotion of liberty and justice, have had no scheme but the building 
i\p of all that was worthy and true in our Republic. If I were to search 
ovci' all the world I could not find a better model of political spirit, of 
aspirations for the truth and the right, than I have found in this com- 
munity during the eighteen years its people have honored me with their 
confidence. I thank the citizens of this county for their kindness, and 
especially my neighbors of Mentor, who have demanded so little of me, 
and have done so much to make my home a refuge and a joy. What 
awaits me I can not now speak of, but I shall carry to the discharge of 
the duties that lie before me, to the problems and dangers I may meet, 
a sense of your confidence and your love, which will always be answered 
by my gratitude. Neighbors, friends, and constituents, farewell," [Great 
applause.] 

Promptly at 1 P. M. the train moved off, and the crowd dis- 
persed. At Ashtabula, that famous old scat of abolitionism, the 
President-elect was called out by the chorus of cheers, and, in 
answer, said : 

" Citizens of Ashtabula: I greatly thank you for this greeting. I can 
not forget the tree that was planted so many years ago, and its planting 
so far watched and assisted by the people of Ashtabula County. It has 
grown to be a great tree. Its branches cover the whole Republic, and 
its leaves and fruit are liberty to all men. That is a Avork for the citi- 
zens of Ashtabula County to be proud of to the latest generation. If I, 
as your representative, have helped on the cause you so much have at 
heart, I am glad; and if in the future I can help to confirm and 
strengthen what you have done so much to build; if I can help to garner 
the harvest that you have helped to plant, I shall feel that I have done 
something toward discharging the debt of gratitude which I owe for 
your confidence and love. I thank you, fellow-citizens, for this farewell 
gi'ceting, and I bid you good-bye." [Great cheering.] 

All along the route, as far as Altoona, Pennsylvania, where 
night overtook the train, the scene at Ashtabula was renewed, the 
President-elect responding pleasantly to the many greetings of the 
people. 

AVe are now oome to the last scene in the progress of James A, 



CANDIDATE FOR PEESIDENCY.— OFF FOR WASHINGTON. 485 

Garfield from the obscurity of a backwoods home to the high scat 
of the Presidency. Wonderful career! Magnificent development 
of American manhood and citizenship! The train carrying the 
President-elect reached Washington on the evening of the 29th 
of February. By the courtesy of Mrs. President Hayes the Gar- 
field family was taken at once to the White House. A press note, 
speaking of the arrival, said : 

"The General looks travel-tired and weary, although the excitement 
keeps him well stimulated, having something of the effect of rich-living. 
He says that when once his Cabinet is s^ettled, and he begins honie-Hfe 
at the White House, he will have a comparative freedom fi'om worry. 
He does not sleep excellently well. Probably no man ever did while 
engaged in making up a Cabinet." 

Here, then, we say. Good-night ; but think of To-morrow ! 



48G 



LIFE OF JAMES A. GAKFIELD. 



CHAPTER XII. 



IX THE HIGH SEAT. 



Not titled rank nor storied pride of birth, 

But free voice of the Jvation 
Hath raised him to the highest place of earth, 

So fit to grace the station. 

THE morning of March 4, 1881, dawned — if such days maybe 
said fo dawn at all — dark and gloomy. The snow, wliich 
had been falling and melting into a very uncomfortable slush 
for days before, still continued. The "weather clerk" proph- 
esied more snow and rain ; and altogether the promise ot this 
day Avas not good to the unnnmbered tlionsands of Americans 
who had come to Washington to see Garfield inaugurated. The 
weather was such as to give a fresli impulse to the talk which 
is sometimes indulged about changing the date of Inauguration 
Day to May 4th. 

E'evertheless, fair weather or foul, blue sk}' or gray, the new 
administration must begin. Shortly before eleven o'clock the 
military escort of the President and President-elect moved up 
Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House to the Capitol. 
It was one of the finest military displays ever seen in Wash- 
ington. Pennsylvania Avenue was lined with a vast multitude, 
whose continual cheers made a sound which could be heard 
afar, like the undying voices of the ocean waves. 

President Il&yes and President-elect Garfield rode in an open 
barouche, drawn by four horses. The First Cleveland Troop, 
splendidly equipped and drilled, marched before, as a guard 
of honor. Garfield looked Aveary. He remarked during the 
morning that the preceding week had been the most trying of 
his life. The cflTect of sleepless nights and deep anxiety was 
plainly visible on his countenance. Thus, with one of the four 



IN THE HIGH SEAT.— DISTINGUISHED SPECTATORS. 487 

grand divisions of the immense procession as his immediate 
escort, heartily cheered all along the line, at halt-past ei€Ven 
the new President reached the Capitol. 

Meanwhile the Senate Chamber and galleries had been rap- 
idly filling with a distinguished throng. The center of attrac- 
tion was in the front seat in the gallery, opposite the A'ice-Presi- 
dent's desk, where sat the President-elect's mother and wife 
and Mrs. Hayes. The venerable woman who sat at the head 
of the seat was regarded with interest by the whole audience, 
as she looked down upon the scene in which her son was the 
most conspicuous figure, with a quiet expression of joy that 
was very delightful to behold. Next to her sat Mrs. Hayes. 
Mrs. Garfield sat at her right, and was dressed very quietly. 
The three ladies chatted together constantly, and the eldest 
set the other two laughing more than once by her quaint re- 
marks on the proceedings in the chamber below them. 

The Senators and Senators-elect were all seated on tlie left 
side of the chandler, and the prominent members of the body 
Avere eagerly watched by the spectators. Among them were 
David Davis and Roscoe Conkling engaged in earnest conver- 
sation. Near these two sat Thurman and Hamlin, two able Sen- 
ators whose last day in the Senate had come. The venerable 
Hamlin was evidently in a meditative mood as the last minutes 
of his long ofiicial life passed by, and was not inclined to be 
talkative. Thurman brought out the familiar snuff-box, took 
his last pinch of Senatorial snufiT, and flung the traditional 
bandana handkerchief once more to the breeze. 

Soon 'General Winfield S. Hancock, late Democratic candi- 
date for the Presidency, came in, accompanied by Senator 
Blaine. Hancock was dressed in Major-General's full uniform, 
looking in splendid condition, and conducted himself in a 
manh', modest fashion, which called forth Avarm applause, and 
commanded the respect of all spectators. Phil Sheridan was 
heartily welcomed when he came in soon after and took his 
seat by Hancock's side. 

After these, the Diplomatic Corps entered, presenting a brill- 



488 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

iant jippearance; and following thcni soou came tlie Judges of 
the Supreme Court. Thou the Cabinet appeared, aud immedi- 
ately the President and President-elect. Vice-President-elect 
Arthur came last, and was presented to the Senate hy Vice- 
President Wheeler. He spoke a few quiet, appreciative words 
in that elegant way he has of doing things, and then took the 
oath of office, after which, exactly at twelve — the Senate clock 
having been turned hack five minutes — the Forty-Sixth Con- 
gress was adjourned without day. 

The center of interest was now transferred to the east 
front of the Capitol, whither, as soon as the new Senators had 
been sworn in, the procession of distinguished people in the 
Chamber took up the line of march. 

A great platform had been erected in front of the building, 
and the sight presented from it was a most striking one, for 
rods and rods in front and to either side were massed thousands 
upon thousands of spectators wedged in one solid mass, so that 
nothiuir but their heads could be seen. It was indeed 



ONE GREAT SEA OF FACES, 

all uplifted in eager expectancy. In the center of the platform, 
at the front, was a little space raised a few inches above the 
level of the rest, upon which stood several chairs, the most no- 
ticeable being a homely aud antique one, which tradition, if not 
history, says was occupied b}' Washington at his first i inaugura- 
tion, ami which has certainly been used for many years on such 
occasions. 

In this chair Mr. Garfield took his seat for a few minutes 
when lie arrived, the others being occupied by President Hayes, 
Vice-President Arthur, Mr, Wheeler, Chief-Justice Waite, 
and Senators Pendleton, Bayard, and Antnony. The elder 
and younger Mrs. Garfield, Mrs. Hayes, and one or two other 
ladies, were also given seats here. At about a quarter of one 
o'clock General Garfield arose from the historic chair, and took 
from his pocket a roll of numuscript, tied at the corner with 



IN THE HIGH SEAT.-THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 489 

blue ribbon. Being introduced by Senator Pendleton, he pro- 
ceeded ti) deliver the Inaugural Address. 

" Fellow-Citizens— We stand to-day upon an eminence which over- 
looks a hundred years of iiationallife, a century crowded with perils, but 
cicvned with triumphs of liberty and love. Before continuing the on- 
ward march let us pause on this height for a moment to strengthen our 
faith and renew our hope by a glance at the pathway along which our 
people have traveled. 

"It is now three days more than a hundred years since the adoption 
of the first written Constitution of the United States, the Articles of Con- 
federation au<l Perpetual Union. Tiie new Republic was then beset with 
danger on every hand. It had not conquered a place in the family of 
Nation-^. Tne decisive battle of the war for independence, whose cen- 
tennial anniversary will soon be gratefully celebrated at Yorktown, had 
not yet been tbuglit. The colonists were struggling, not only against the 
arnues of Great Britain, but against the settled opinions of mankind, for 
the worhl did not believe that the supreme authority of government 
could be safely intrusted to the guardianship of the people themselves. 
We can not overestimate the fervent love, the intelligent courage, the 
saving common sense with wliich our fathers made the great experiment 
of self-government. 

"When they found, after a short time, that the Confederacy of States 
was too weak to meet the necessities of a glorious and expanding Repub- 
lic, they boldly set it aside, and in its stead established a National Union, 
founded directly upon the will of the i)eople, endowed with powers of 
self-preservation, and with ample authority for the accomplishment of its 
great objects. 

" Under this Constitution the boundaries of freedom are enlarged, the 
foundations of order and peace have b en strengthened, and the growth 
in all the better elements of National life have vindicated the wisdom of 
the founders and given new hope to tluir descendants. 

" Under this Constitution our people long ago made themselves safe 
against danger from without, and s'ecured for their mariners and flag 
equality of rights on all the seas. Under this Constitution twenty-five 
States have been added to the Union, with constitutions and laws framed 
and enforced by their own citizens to secure the manifold blessings of 
local and self-government. 

"The jurisdiction of this Constitution now covers an area fifty times 



490 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

greater than that of the original tliirteen states, and a population twenty 
times greater than that of 1780. The trial of the Constitution came a,t 
last under the tremendous pressure of civil war. 

"We ourselves are witnesses that the Union emerged from the blood 
and fire of that CDuflict, purified and made stronger for all the beneficent 
purposes of good government, and now at the close of this, the first ceu- 
tuiy of growth, with the ins])irations of its history in their hearts, our 
people have lately reviewed the condition of the Nation, passed judgment 
upon the conduct and opinions of the political parties, and have registered 
their will concerning the future administration of the Government. To 
interpret and to execute that will in accordance with the Constitution is 
the paramount duty of the Executive. Even from this brief review it is 
manifest tliat the Nation is resolutely facing to the front, a resolution to 
employ its best energies in developing the great possibilities of the future. 
Sacredly preserving whatever has been gained to liberty and good gov- 
ernment during the century, our people are determined to leave behind 
them all those bitter controversies concerning things which have been ii*- 
revocably settled, further discussion of which can only stir up strife and 
delay the onward march. Tlie supremacy of the Nation and its laws 
should be no longer the subject of debate. That discussion, which for 
half a century threatened the existence of the Union, was closed at last 
in the high court of war by a decree from which there is no aj)peal : 
that the Constitution and the laws made in pursuance thereof shall con- 
tinue to be the supreme law of the land, binding alike on the States and 
the people. This decree does not disturb the autonomy of the States, nor 
interfere with any of their necessary rules of local self-government, but 
it does fix and establish the permanent supremacy of the Union. 

" The will of the Nation, speaking with the voice of battle and through 
the amended Constitution, has fulfilled the great promise of 1776 by pro- 
claiming ' Liberty throughout the land to all the inhabitants tlicrcof.' 

"The elevation of the negro race from slavery to full rights of citizeii- 
Bliip, is the most important political change Ave have known since the adop- 
tion of the Constitution of 177G. 

"No thoughtful man can fail to apj)rcciatc its beneficent effect upon 
our ])eople. It has freed us from the peri)etual danger of war and dis- 
soluti(Mi ; it has added immensely to the moral and industrial forces of 
our people; it has liberated the master as well as the slave from a rela- 
tion wliich wronged and enfeebled both. 



IN THE HIGH SEAT.— THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 491 

"It has surrendered to their own guardianship the niiuihood of more 
than five millions of people, and lias opened to each of them a career 
of feedom and usefuhiess. It has given new inspiration to the power 
of self-help in both races by making labor more honorable to one and 
more necessary to the otiiei'. 

"The influence of tliis ibrce will giow greater and l)ear richer fruit 
with coming years. Nd doubt the great change has cau^^ed .-erious dis- 
turbance to the Southein community — this is to be dejilored, though it 
was uiui voidable ; but tho e who resisted the cluinge should remember 
that in our institutions there was no middle ground for the negro race 
between slavery and equal citizenship. There can be no ])ermanent dis- 
franchised peasantry in the United States. Freedom can never yield its 
fubness of blessing as long as law or its adniinisi ration places the smallest 
obstacle in the pathway of any virtuous citizenship. 

"The emancipated race has already made remarkable progress. With 
unquestionable devotion to the Union, Avith a patience and gentleness not 
born of fear, 'they liave followed the light as God gave them to see the 

" They are rapidly laying the material foundation for self-support, 
widening their circle of intelligence, and beginning to enjoy the bless- 
ings that gather around the homes of the industrious jjoor. They de- 
serve the generous encouragement of all good men. 

"So far as my authority can lawfully extend, they shall enjoy full and 
equal protection of the Constitution and laws. The free enjoyment of 
equal suffrage is still in question, and a frank statement of the issue may 
aid its solution. 

"It is alleged that in many communities negro citizens are practically 
denied freedom of the ballot. In so far as the truth of this allegation is 
admitted, it is answered tliat in many places honest local government is 
impossible if the mass of uneducated negroes are allowed to vote. These 
are grave allegations. 

" So far as the latter is true, it is no palliation that can be offered for 
opposing the freedom of the ballot. Bad local government is certainly a 
great evil which ought to be prevented, but to violate the freedom and 
sanctity of suffrage is more than an evil, it is a crime, which, if persisted 
in, will destroy the Government itself. Suicide is not a remedy. 

"If in other lands it be high treason to compass the death of a king, 
it should be counted no less a crime here to strangle our sovereign power 



492 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

and stifle its voice. It has been said that unsettled questions have no 
pity for the repose of nations. It should be said, with the utmost em- 
phasis, that this question of suffrage will never give repose or safety to 
the States or to the Nation, until each, within its own jurisdiction, makes 
and keeps the ballot fiee and pure by strong sanctions of law. 

" But the danger which arises from ignorance in votere can not be de- 
nied. It covers a field far wider than that of negro suffrage and the 
pi'esent condition of that race. It is a danger that lurks and hides in the 
sources and fountains of power in every State. We have no standard by 
which to measure the disaster that may be brought upon us by ignornnce 
and vice in citizens when joined to corruption and fraud in suffrage. The 
voters of the Union, who make and unmake constitutions, and upon whose 
wull hangs the destiny of our government, can transmit their supreme 
authority to no successor save the coming generation of voters, who are 
the sole heirs of sovereign power. If that generation comes to its inherit- 
ance blinded by ignorance and corrupted by vice, the fall of the Republic 
will be certain and remediless. The census has already sounded the alarm 
in appalling figures, which mark how dangerously high the tide of illiter- 
acy has arisen among our voters and their children. To the South the 
question is of supreme importance, but the responsibility for its existence 
and for slavery does not I'est upon the South alone. 

"The Nation itself is responsible for the extension of suffrage, and is 
under special obligations to aid in removing the illiteracy which it lins 
added to the voting population. For North and South alike there is but 
one remedy : All the Constitutional power of the Nation and of the States, 
and all the volunteer forces of the people, should he summoned to meet 
this danger by the saving influence of universal education. It is the 
high privilege and sacred duty of those now living to educate their suc- 
cessors, and fit thera, by intelligence and virtue, for the inheritance which 
awaits them. In this beneficent work section and race should be forgot- 
ten, and partisanship should be unknown. Let our people find a new 
meaning in the divine oracle which declares that ' a little child shall lead 
them,' for our little children will soon control the destinies of the Republic. 

" My countrymen, we do not now differ in our judgment concerning the 
controversies of the past generations, and fifty years hence our children 
will not be divided in their opinions concerning our controversies; they 
will surely bless their fathers — and their fathers' God — that the Union 
was preserved ; that slavery Avas overthrown, and that both races were 



IX THE HIGH SEAT.— THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 493 

made equal before the law. ^Ye may hasten on, we may retard, but -\ve 
can not prevent the iiual reconciliation. 

" Is it not ])ossible for us now to make a truce ivith time by anticipat- 
ing and acrepting its inevitable verdict? Enterprises oi' tie liighcet im- 
portance to our moral and material well-being invite us, and otfVr ample 
scope tor the enjoyment of our best powers. 

" Let all our people, leaving behind them the battle-fields of de;\d issues, 
move forward, and in the strength of liberty and restored union win the 
grandest victories of peace. The prosperity which now prevails is with- 
out parallel in our history. Fruitful seasons have done much to secure 
it, but they have not done all. 

" The preservation of public credit and the resumption of specie pay- 
ments, s ) successfully obtained by the administration of my })redeccs.s()rs, 
have enaltled our people to secure the blessings which the seasons brought, 

" By the experience of commercial relations in all ages it has been 
found that gold and silver aflbrded the only safe foundation fir a mone- 
tary system. Confusion has recently been created by variations in the 
relative valuo of the two metals; but I confidently believe that ariange- 
ments can hn n)ade between the leading commercial nations which will 
secure the general use of l)oth metals. Congress should provide that the 
compul-ory coinage of silver, now required by law, may not disturb our 
monetary system l)y driving either metal out of circulation. 

" If possible, such adjustment should be made that the purchasing 
power of every coined dollar will be exactly equal to its debt-paj^ing 
power in all the markets of tlie world. The chief duty of a Kational 
Government, in connection with the currency of the country, is to coin 
and declara its value. Grave doubts have been entertained whether 
Congress is authorized by the Constitution to make any form of paper 
money legal-tender. 

"The present issue of United States notes has been sustained by the 
necessities of war; but such paper should depend for its value and cur- 
rency upon its convenience in use and its prompt redemption in coin at 
the will of the holder, and not upon its compulsory circulation. Tliese 
notes are not money, but promises to pay money. If the holders de- 
mand it, the promi-es should be kept. The refunding of the National 
debt at a low rate of interest should be accomplished without romjielling 
the withdrawal of National bank notes, and thus disturbing the business 
of the country. 



494 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

"I venture to refer to the position I have occupied on the financial 
question during ii long service in Congress, and to say that time and ex- 
perience have strengthened the opinions I have so often expressed on 
these subjects. The finances of the Government shall suffer no detriment 
Avhich it may be possible for my administration to prevent. 

" The interests of agriculture deserve more attention from the Gov- 
ernment than they have yet received. The farms of the United States 
afford homes and employment for more than one-half of our people, and 
furnish much the largest part of all our exports. As the Government 
lights our coasts for the protection of the mariners and the benefit of our 
commerce, so it should give to the tillers of the soil the lights of practical 
science and experience. 

" Our manufacturers are rapidly making us industrially independent, 
and are opening to capital and labor new and profitable fields of employ- 
ment. This steady and healthy growth should still be maintained. Our 
facilities for transportation should be promoted by the continued improve- 
ment of our harbors and the great interior water-ways and by the increase 
of our tonnage on the ocean. 

" The development of the Avorld's commerce has led to an urgent de- 
mand for a shortening of the great sea voyage around Cape Horn by con- 
structing ship-canals or railways across the Isthmus which unites the 
two continents. Various plans to this end have been suggested and will 
need consMeratlon, but none of them have been sufficiently matured to 
warrant the United States in extending pecuniary aid. 

"The subject is one which will immediately engage the attention of the 
Government with a view to a thorough protection of American interests. 
We will argue no narrow policy, nor seek peculiar or exclusive privileges 
in any ct^minercial route; but, in the language of my predecessors, I 
believe it to be ' the right and duty of the United States to assert and 
maintiiin such supervision and authority over any inter-oceanic canal 
across the Isthmus that connects North and South America as will pro- 
tect our National interests.' 

"The Constitution guarantees absolute religious freedom. Congress is 
prohibitpd from making any laws respecting the establishment of religion 
or prohibiting free exercise thereof. 

" The Territories of the United States are subject to the direct legis- 
lative authority of Congress, and hence the General Government is re- 
sponsible for any violation of the Constitution in any of them. It is, 



IN THE HIGH SEAT.— THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 495 

therefore, a reproach to the Government that in the most ])opuhnis of 
the Territories this constitutional guarantee is not enjoyed by the people, 
and the authority of Congress is set at naught. The Mormon Cliurch 
not only offends the moral sense of mankind by sanctioning polygamy, 
but prevents the administration of justice tlirough the ordinary instru- 
mentalities of the law. 

"In n)y judgment it is the duty of Congress, while respecting to the 
utmost the conscientious convictions and religious scruples of every citi- 
zen, to prohibit witliin its jurisdiction all criminal practices, especially 
of that class which destroy family relations and endanger social order. 
Nor can any ecclesiastical organization be safely permitted to usurp in 
the smallest degree the functions and powers of the National Governnient. 

"The Civil Service can never be placed on a satisfactory basis until it 
is regulated by law, for the good of the service itself. For the protection 
of those who are intrusted with the appointing power against a waste of 
time and obstruction of public business, caused by the inordinate pressure 
for place, and for the protection of incumbents against intrigue and 
wrong, I shall, at the proper time, ask Congress to fix the tenure of 
minor offices of the several Executive Departments, and prescribe the 
grounds upon which removals shall be made during the terms for which 
the incumbents have been appointed. 

'* Finally, acting always within the authority and limitations of the 
Constitution, invading neither the rights of States nor the reserved rights 
of the people, it will be the purpose of my administration to maintain 
tlie authority, and in all places within its jurisdiction, to enforce obedi- 
ence to all laws of the Union ; in the interests of the people, to demand 
rigid economy in all the expenditures of the Government, and to require 
honest and fiithfal service of all executive officers, remembering that 
offices were created not for the benefit of the incumbents or their sup- 
porters, but for the service of the Government, 

"And now, fellow-citizens, I am about to assume the great trust which 
you have committed to my hands. I appeal to you for that earnest and 
thoughtful support which makes this Government in fact, as it is in law, 
a government of the people. I shall greatly rely upon the Avisdom and 
patriotism of Congress and of those who may share with me the respon- 
sibilities and duties of the administration, and upon our efforts to pro- 
mote the welfare of this great people and their Government I reverently 
invoke the support and blessing of Almighty God. 



49G 



LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 



The address was delivered in a deliberate, forcible manner. The 
President's appearance was dignified, and even imposing. That 
splendid voice, with its magnetic power and fine tone, captivated 
his admiring audience, who listened patiently throughout the entire 

thirty-five minutes. At 
its close Garfield turned 
toward the Chief Justice 
who advanced and ad- 
ministered the oath of 
office, the Clerk of the 
Supreme Court holding 
a beautifully-bound Bi- 
ble, upon which the oath 
Avas taken. Then oc- 
curred as impressive an 
episode as was ever seen 
in official life. After the 
new President had been 
congratulated by ex- 
Presidcnt Hayes and 
Chief Justice A\'aite, who 
stood next to him, he 
turned niound, took his 
aged mother by the hand 
and kissed her. The old 
lady's cup of happiness at this moment seemed full and running 
over. It is quite safe to say that nobody, not even Garfield him- 
self, felt more enjoyment at the spectacle of his elevation than this 
woman whose mind ranged from the days of his obscure and pov- 
erty-stricken boyhood to his present elevation, and nobody wit- 
nessed the sight but rejoiced at her happiness. Mrs. Eliza Gar- 
field is the first example of a President's mother having a home in 
the White House. And it was a pleasure to the people to know 
that special arrangements had been made there for her accommo- 
dation. 

Garfii'ld next kissed his wife, then shook hands with Mrs, 




G. ULAINE. 



IN THE HIGH SEAT.— CONGKATULATIONS. 



497 



Hayes, and speedily found the grasp of his hand sought by every 
body within reach, from Vice-President down through Congress- 
men to the unknown strangers who could manage to push witliin 
reaching distance. 

Meanwhile the ele- 
ments had begun to 
modify their rigors. 
The bright sunlight 
breaking through the 
clouds, was reflected 
from the snow, and nat- 
ure seemed less cheer- 
less. At last, the Presi- 
dential party, jostled a 
good deal on the way, 
returned through the 
rotunda to the Senate 
wing of the Capitol, and 
prepared for the ride to 
the White 'House. Tak- 
ing their place near the 
head of the procession, 
they passed up to the 
other end of the Ave- 
nue, receiving on the 
way the applause of the multitude. President Garfield and party 
then took position on a stand erected for the purpose in front of 
a building near the Avenue, and from this point reviewed the 
procession, which filed past for two full hours. There were over 
15,000 men in line, and the whole number of spectators was doubt- 
less over 100,000. 

Immediately after review of the procession. President Garfield 
received the Williams College Association, of Washington, w*ith 
visiting Alumni to the number of fifty, in the East Room of the 
Executive Mansion. Rev. Mark Hopkins, ex-president of the 
wllege, eloquently presented the congratulations of the Alumni. 
32 




WILLIAM WINDOM. 



■198 



LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 



President Garfield made an appropriate response, in which he 
exhibited considerable emotion. Afterward the Alumni were jjre- 
sented to the mother and wife of the President. Twenty members 
of President Garfield's class were among the Alumni present. 

The festivi- 
ties of March 
fourth ended 
at night with 
a magnificent 
display of fire- 
works, a great 
inaugural ball 
in the Museum 
building, and 
numerous re- 
ceptions at the 
houses of the 
most distin- 
guished resi- 
dents at the 
Capital. 

On the fifth 
of March, 
President 
Garfield sent 
to the Senate, 
then in extra 
session, a list 
of nomina- 
tions for his Cabinet. These were unanimously confirmed. They 
were : Secretary of State, James G. Blaine, of Maine ; Secretary 
of the Treasury, William Windom, of Minnesota; Secretary of 
W'tir, Robert T. Lincoln, of Illinois; Secretary of the Navy, Wm. 
II. Hunt, of Louisiana ; Secretary of the Interior, S. J. Kirkwood, 
of Iowa ; Attorney-General, Wayne Mac Yeagh, of Pennsylvania ; 
Postmaster-General, Thomas L. James, of New York. 




ROBEJIT T. UNCOLN. 



IN THE HIGH SEAT.— THE CABINET. 



499 



This proved an admirable selection. Its components are men 
who stand well with the country, and whose services in other 
positions had given sufficient evidence of honesty and capacity to 
recommend them to the American people. And it involved no 
antagonistic elements. 

Agjvin, this new Cab- 
inet did not take its bias 
from any strong political 
element. It was not a 
Grant - Conkling selec- 
tion; nor even a Blaine 
Cabinet. It was a Garfield 
Cabinet, in which the 
President was unmistak- 
ably the central figure 
and the center of power. 

James G. Blaine, 
Secretary of State, was 
leader of the group. His 
prominent position in 
his party and before the 
country made his nomi- 
nation generally accept- 
able, and his long and 
intimate acquaintance with affairs of state gave him the requisite 
experience. Undoubtedly, Blaine is one of the most magnificently 
endowed men, in intellectual power, now in public life. 

Secretary Windom had a difficult place to fill in following John 
Sherman as Secretary of the Treasury. Sherman had heartily rec- 
ommended Windom for the place, and he was probably the best 
choice that could have been made. He had been an anti-third 
term man, of course, but was very friendly with such Stalwarts as 
Conkling and Arthur, and was thus a good factor in an adminis- 
tration which did not want to antagonize these men, although not 
yielding to them. 

The nomination of Robert T. Lincoln was very largely the result 




WILLIAM H. HUNT. 



500 



LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 



of sentiment — but a very good sentiment. He had been a respect- 
able lawyer, who attended carefully to his business, and, under 
trying circumstances, had conducted himself with discretion. It 
happened that he was a favorite of Senator Logan, and that 

President Garfield de- 
sired to make his Cab- 
inet agreeable to the 
Senator; also, that 
young Lincoln had 
been, according to his 
opportunities, a Third- 
termer, and it Mas the 
desire of the President 
to conciliate the Third- 
termers, so far as it 
could be done without 
giving his. policy an 
unwarranted slant; and 
it ha])pened also that 
General Garfield, as we 
have seen from his ad- 
dresses years j)revious 
to this time, held the 
memory of Abraham 
Lincoln in the deepest reverence, and felt a solicitude to make 
his own elevation to the Presidency honor that memory. Under 
these circumstances, and from these considerations, the appoint- 
ment of Mr. Robert T. Lincoln to be Secretary of War came nat- 
urally about. 

Hunt was appointed to represent the South. 
Kirkwood was a man whom Garfield had long held in high 
esteem, and was fiimiliar with public business. 

Wayne MacVcagli, though brother-in-law to Don Cameron, did 
not belong to the Cameron political clan. He was chosen as a 
Republican of independent proclivities, and a lawyer of whose 
ability there could be no question. 




J. KIRKWOOD. 



IN THE HIGH SEAT.— ADDEESS TO TEMPEEANCE LADIES. 501 



Mr. James, Postmaster of New York City, was appointed Post- 
master-General for purely business reasons, and because he was 
not only believed to be the best man for the place, but was ouo 
of the few first-class public men in New York not fully commit- 
ted to one or the 
other of the per- 
sonal or political 
factions of Re- 
publicans in that 
State. 

Thus Garfield 
tried, and with a 
degree of success, 
to appoint a Cab- 
i n e t which 
should not give 
any one cause for 
organizing an 
opposition to the 
Administration. 
He certainly had 
the good will of 
all Republicans, 
and even his po- 
litical enemies 
conceded that he 
started out under 
bright auspices. 

The country itself was prosperous, and the most far-sighted men 
joined the unreflecting multitude in predictions of a happy, 
uneventful administration of four years, under the peaceful rule 
of a popular President. 

Four days after his inauguration, a company of fifty ladies, 
members of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union, 
called at the White House to present a portrait of Mrs. Lucy Webl> 
Hayes, just completed by Mr. Huntington. It will be remembered 




WAYNE MACVEAGH. 



50i> 



LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 



that ]\Irs. Hayes had won the approval of many good people by 
declining to pnt wine on the table at the Wliite House. These 
ladies now desired to impress on the new incumbents the desirabil- 
ity of continuing that j)olicy. In responding to the presentation 

speech, President Gar- 
field received the por- 
trait, and referred to the 
temperance question 
thus: 

" Nothing I can say will 
be equal to my high appre- 
ciation of the character of 
the lady whose picture is 
now added to the treasures 
of this place. She is noble, 
the friend of all good peo- 
ple. Her portrait will take, 
and I hope will always 
hold in this house, an hon- 
ored place. I have ob- 
served the significance 
which you have given to 
this portrait from the 
stand-point you occupy, 
and in connection with the work in which you are engaged. First, 
I. approve most heartily what you have said in reference to the 
freedom of individnal judgment and action, symbolized in this 
portrait. There are several sovereignties in this country. First, 
ilie sovereignty of the American people, then* the sovereignty nearest 
to us all — the sovereignty of the family the absolute right of each 
family to control its affairs in accordance with the conscience and con- 
victions of duty of the heads of the family. In the picture before us 
that is bravely symbolized. I have no doubt the American people 
will always tenderly regard their household sovereignty, and hoAvever 
households may differ in their views and convictions, I believe that those 
differences will be respected. Each household, by following its own 
convictions, and holding itself responsible to God, will, I think, be re- 




THOMAS L. JAMES. 



IN THE HIGH SEAT.— THE STALWARTS. 503 

spected by the American people. What you have said concerning the 
evils of intemperance, meets my most hearty concurrence. I have been, 
in my way, and in accordance with my own convictions, an earnest advo- 
cate of temperance, not in so narrow a sense as some, but in a very 
definite and practical sense. These convictions are deep, and will be 
maintained. Whether I shall be able to meet the views of all people in 
regard to all the phases of that question remains to be seen, but I shall 
do what I can to abate the great evils of intemperance. I shall be glad 
to have the picture upon these walls; I shall be glad to remember your 
kind expressions to me and my family ; and in your efforts to better mankind 
by your work, I liope you will be guided by wisdom and that you will 
achieve a worthy success." 

President Hayes had left the new administration a heritage of 
hatred from the stalwart element of the Republican party. It 
was President Garfield's chief wish, politically, to heal up the chasm 
which the past had opened, and not to recognize one faction more 
than another. Notwithstanding these purposes, the deadly breach 
which had yawned apart during the Hayes administration, was 
an ominous thing. The defeat of the Stalwarts at Chicago, by 
Garfield, naturally tended to transfer their hostility from the out- 
going to the incoming President. For months before the inau- 
guration, the embarrassment wdiich threatened Garfield was fore- 
seen by the country. On the one hand were the men who had 
nominated him in the Chicago Convention, — men who, risking every 
political prospect, rebelled from the command of their leaders, such 
as Conkling, Cameron, and Logan, and defeated Grant. To such, 
Garfield owed his nomination. On the other hand ^vas the stal- 
wart element, still bruised and sore from the defeat at Chicago. 
Yet they had entered heartily into the campaign. They had swal- 
lowed their chagrin, and outwardly, if not inwardly, submitted 
with good grace to their defeat, and wheeled into line of battle for 
the fall election. To these men, Garfield was largely indebted for 
his election. In his administration, how could he recognize either 
one of these elements without arousing the antagonism of the 
other? This w^as the riddle which he must solve. 

The breach between the two was as deadly as ever. The Cabi- 



504 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

net was a compromise, but the Grant men were afraid of it, with 
Blaine so near the throne. 

For a few days after the inauguration, the surface of the sea 
was tolerably smooth ; but acute political mariners prophesied 
rough weather. The two wings of the party in New York were 
waiting to fly at each other's throats at the first opportunity. The 
balance of power between the two elements was the official patron- 
age of the President. Into whose lap the plum was thrown, to that 
wing belonged the ascendancy. 

Senator Conkling's chief political purpose was to chastise the 
men who had deserted his standard at Chicago. This he could 
best accomplish by controlling the Federal patronage himself; 
but failing in that, his next object was to cause the patronage 
to be distributed to neutrals, thereby preventing it from becoming 
an element at all in the fight. 

Senators Conkling, Logan, and Cameron, as well as Sherman 
and Blaine, were visitors at the White House, and left in pleasant 
humor. In the eyes of the country it seemed plain that Conkling 
had made the disposition of the New York patronage the price of 
his frienship to the new administration. Every body was on tip- 
toe to see what the President would do. On March 22d, he sent 
to the Senate, for confirmation, the names of Stewart L. Woodford, 
-to be United States Attorney for the Southern District of New 
York, and Asa W. Tenney, for the Eastern District; Lewis F. 
Payne, to be United States Marshal, for the Southern, and Clin- 
ton D. McDougall, for the Northern District of New York, and 
John Tyler, to be Collector of Customs at Buffalo. 

This move was interpreted by the country to mean a great 
victory for Conkling, and that the New York patronage was con- 
trolled by him. Other nominations, in Conkling's supposed inter- 
est, were those of James in the Cabinet, and Morton, ISIinister to 
France. 

But on the following day, President Garfield nominated, for 
Collector of the port of New York, William H. Robertson. 
In New York, and more or less throughout the country, 
this w^as a great surprise. But it was not au objectionable 



IN THE HIGH SEAT.— NOMINATION OF EOBEETSON. 505 

nomination. Then it was Eobertson who headed the break in 
the New York delegation at Chicago. He had risked much; 
he had been very hirgelj instrumental in nominating G-arfield. 
Gratitude is a noble quality of human nature, and the Pres- 
ident was a man of generous motives and impulses. The 
general expression from the country upon the Robertson nom- 
ination was one of approval. To disinterested people, far away 
from the heat and dust of the battle, it was, coupled with 
the nominations of the preceding day, plainly a declaration 
of an intention to recognize each branch of the party in 
[N'ew York. Weaker men would have recognized neither, 
giving the offices to neutrals, and pleasing nobody. Mere 
partisan men would have recognized one faction only. Gar- 
field tried to recognize both. A deeper significance also lay 
in the Robertson nomination. Whether Garfield meant it or 
not, it was, in a sense, a declaration of independence. Gar- 
field, with his lion-like courage, his intellectual powers, his 
moral greatness, could not, in fact or in appearance, allow 
his administration to be manipulated by outside influence. 
It was said that Mr. Blaine was the author of the Robertson 
nomination; that it was his revenge on Conkling. Garfield 
said repeatedly, even on the bed of pain, that it was his own 
in every sense, and that Blaine had not known that it was 
intended to be made. 

Whatever President Garfield intended by the nomination 
of Robertson, Senator Conkling treated it as a declaration of 
war. In their views of what followed, men will diifer. It is 
not for these pages, penned so soon in the darkness of an awful 
assassination, to do more than relate the facts, though it is 
impossible for a biographer of the dead to do other than 
sympathize with him. Senator Conkling said that Hayes had 
never done a thing so terrible. He said that the nomination 
of Robertson, the most objectionable man possible — without 
consultation with the Senators from New York, or without 
their being informed of the intention to make a change in 
the most important office in the State, was a grievous personal 



506 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

and political wrong. He said that the long dispute as to 
■whether a small faction of Yew York Republicans, or four- 
fifths of the party in the State, as represented by him, were 
to be treated by the Administration as the Republican party 
of New York, had at last to be settled finally and forever. 

The situation was one of intense interest. Popular opinion 
supported tlie President, though not a few took the side of 
Conkliiig. The latter, together with Piatt, the junior l^ew 
York Senator, resolved to fight the confirmation of Robert- 
son. They believed that, with the Senate evenly balanced, 
they could, with the help of the Democrats, prevent Robert- 
son's confirmation. It was a battle of giants. Men won- 
dered whether, when war was declared, Grarfield would strike 
back or not. The Stalwarts ofiered only one way of compro- 
mise — the withdrawal of Robertson's nomination. But the 
President was firm. Efibrts were made to induce Robertson 
to ask the President to withdraw his name in the interest 
of harmony. But he scouted the idea. The State Senate of 
New York, of which Robertson was the presiding ofiicer, 
passed a resolution in support of the Administration. On be- 
half of the President's action it was claimed, that it was his 
constitutional right to nominate ; that the New York Sena- 
tors overstepped their prerogative in attacking his action ; 
that the ofiice of Collector of the Port was a national oflice, 
and not rightfully a part of the local patronage ; that the 
Executive should select the man through whose hands passed 
nine-tenths of the tariff revenues of the country. 

There had been a dead-lock of the Senate over the nomina- 
tion of its officers, and this still continued, and the President 
was, in consequence, embarrassed by the failure to act on any 
of his nominations. It began to be thought that this delay, 
covered by the pretense of securing Mahone, of Virginia, to 
the Republicans, was really a scheme to prevent any action 
on the President's nominations. 

Meanwhile, the administration had to deal witli problems 
more import,ant to the country than the Robertson nomination. 



IN THE HIGH SEAT.— GEAND FINANCIAL SCHEME. 507 

Two hundred millions of six per cent, bonds were shortly to 
become redeemable. It was every way desirable that the 
bonds should be redeemed and the rate of interest on the 
public debt reduced. To issue bonds under the existing laws, 
in order to raise money to redeem the six per cents., would 
require the new bonds to be issued at four per cent, for thirty 
years, or four and a half per cent, for twenty years. These 
rates of interest were too high, and the time for the bonds 
to run too long. In case the Government acquired the means 
to pay them off before they were due, still the interest would 
keep running. There were grave objections to calling an extra 
session of Congress. Garfield aiid the country were afraid 
of the unsettling influence of our national legislature. Early 
in his Congressional career, Garfield had said, "if the laws 
of God were as vacillating as the laws of this country, the 
universe would be reduced to chaos in a single day." Above 
all things, the business of the country demanded a rest from 
congressional tiukeriug. 

When powerful, and it was thought overwhelming influ- 
ences pressed upon President Garfield the policy of an extra 
session of Congress, he sent to the Secretary of the Treasury 
a call for full information as to the powers he had under 
existing laws. It was a wise conclusion that it might be 
easier to hunt up old laws than to have new ones made. 
Whatever the old laws permitted was certain, but a fresh 
Congress is uncertain, especially on finance. 

The Secretary found that there was no law to prevent the 
Government from using its credit and business foresight in 
handling and refunding its indebtedness. The plan which 
President Garfield and Secretary Windom evolved was abso- 
lutely original and proved to be the highest statesmanship. 
Garfield was at home on questions of finance. 

A circular was issued to the holders of the six per cents., 
saying that after the following July 1st, interest would cease, 
and the bonds be redeemed as fast as presented. If, how- 
ever, the holders preferred to retain the bonds, and receive 



510 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 



CONGRESS AND THE EXECUTIVE. 



" lu the main, the bahmee of powers so admirably adjusted and dis- 
tributed among the three great departments of the Government have 
been safely preserved. It was the purpose of our fathers to lodge abso- 
lute power nowhere; to leave each department independent within its 
own sphere, yet, in every case, responsible for the exercise of its discre- 
tion. But some dangerous innovations have been made. 

"And first, the appointing power of the President has been seri(msly 
encroached upon by Congress, or rather by the members of Congress. 
Curiously enough, this enci-oachment originated in the act of the Chief 
Executive himself. The fierce popular hatred of the Federal party, 
which resulted in the elevation of Jefferson to the Presidency, led that 
officer to set the first example of removing men from office on account of 
political opinions. For political causes alone he removed a considerable 
numberof officers who had recently been appointed by President Adams, 
and thus set the pernicious example. His immediate successors made only a 
few removals for political reasons. But Jackson made his political op- 
ponents who were in office feel the full weight of his executive hand. 
From that time forward the civil offices of the Government became the 
prizes for which political parties strove; and, twenty-five years ago, the 
corrupting doctrine that 'to the victors belong the spoils' was shame- 
lessly announced as an article of political faith and practice. It is hardly 
possible to state with adequate force the noxious influence of this doc- 
trine. It was bad enough when the Federal officers numbered no more 
than eight or ten thousand; but now, when the growth of the country 
and the great increase in the number of public offices occasioned by the 
late war, have swelled the civil list to more than eighty thousand, and 
to the ordinary motives for political strife this vast patronage is ofl^ered 
as a reward to the victorious party, the magnitude of the evil can hardly 
be measured. The public mind lias, by degrees, drifted into aii accept- 
ance of this doctrine ; and thus an election has become a fierce, selfish 
struggle between the ' ins ' and the ' outs,' the one striving to keep and the 
other to gain the prize of office. It is not possible for any President to 
select, with any degree of intelligence, so vast an army of office-holders 
without the aid of men who are acquainted with the people of the vari- 
ous sections of the country. And thus it has become the habit of Presi- 
dents to make most of their appointments on the recommendation of 
members of Congress. During the last twenty-five years, it has been un- 



IN THE HIGH SEAT.— ABUSES OF THE CIVIL SEEVICE. 511 

(lerstood, by the Congress and the people, that offices are to be obtained 
by the aid of Senators and Representatives, who thus become the dis- 
pensers, sometimes the brokers, of patronage. The members of State 
legislatures who choose a senator, and the district electors who choose a 
representative, look to the man of their choice for appointments to office. 
Thus, from the President downward, through all the. grades of official 
authority, to the electors themselves, civil office becomes a vast corrupt- 
ing power, to be used in running the machine of party politics. 

"This evil has been greatly aggravated by the passage of the Tenure 
of Office Act, of 1867, whose object was to restrain President Johnson 
from making removals for political cause. But it has virtually resulted 
in the usurpation, by the Senate, of a large share of the appointing 
power. The President can remove no officer without the consent of the 
Senate; and such consent is not often given, unless the appointment of 
the successor nominated to fill the proposed vacancy is agreeable to the 
Senator in whose State the appointee resides. Thus it has hajipened 
that a policy inaugurated by an early President has resulted in seri- 
ously crippling the just powers of the Executive, and has placed in the 
hands of Senators and Representatives a power most corrupting and 
dangerous. 

' ' Not the least serious evil resulting from this invasion of the Execu- 
tive functions by members of Congress is the fact that it greatly impairs 
their own usefulness as legislators. One-third of the working hours of 
Senators and Representatives is hardly sufficient to meet the demands 
made upon them in reference to appointments to office. To sum up in a 
word : the present system invades the independence of the Executive, 
and makes hin>less responsible for the character of his appointments; it 
impairs the efficiency of the legislator by diverting him from his proper 
sphere of duty and involving him in the intrigues of aspirants for office; 
it degrades the civil service itself by destroying the personal independence 
of those who are appointed; it repels from the service those high and 
manly qualities which are so necessary to a pure and efficient adminis- 
ti'ation ; and, finally, it debauches the public mind by holding up public 
office as the reward of mere party zeal. 

" To reform this service is one of the highest and most imperative 
duties of statesmanship. This reform can not be accomplished without a 
complete divorce l:)etween Congress and the Executive in the matter of 
appointments. It will be a proud day when an Administration Senator or 



512 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

Representative, ^vho is in good standing in his party, can say, as Thomas 
Hughes said, during his recent visit to this country, that though he was 
on the most intimate terms with the members of his own administration, 
yet it was not in his power to secure the removal of the humblest clerk 
in the civil service of his government." 

It is easy to see the principle which lay behind the nomination 
of Robertson independently of the New York Senators, and the 
demand that it should be acted upon by the Senate. It is idle 
to say that Mr. Blaine or any other man made the President his 
tool. President Garfield's policy w^as the logical outgrowth of his 
opinions, and it was he who, opinions and all, was elected by the 
people. 

The withdra^val of the other nominations, it was conceded, de- 
feated the New York Senators. The country watched the situa- 
tion with interest, if not anxiety. The next move of Conkling 
was anxiously expected. It came. 

On May 16, 1881, Vice-President Arthur handed the Reading 
Clerk a little sheet of note-paper containing these words : 

Washington, May 16, 1881. 
Sir: Will you please announce to the Senate that my resignation as Senator 
of the United States from the State of New York has been forwarded to the 
Governor of the State. 

I have the honor to be, with great respect, your obedient servant, 

EoscoE Conkling. 
To Hon. C. A. Abthue. 

He read it in the monotonous sing-song, uninflected way of 
which he is master, but before he had finished all eyes w^ere upon 
him, and all ears were opened to receive the announcement. 
Astonishment sat on every face. Each man looked to his neigh- 
bor in questioning wonder. A murmur of surprised comment 
crept around the chamber. Then some incredulous Senators de- 
manded a second reading of the momentous missive. Once more 
the clerk chanted its contents, while the incredulous ones, erui- 
vinced against their will, drank in the simple statement of the 
startling fact. Then the Vice-President handed the clerk another 
note of like tenor, running thus: / 



IN THE HIGH SEAT.— KOBERTSON CONFIRMED. 513 

Senate Chamber, May 16, 1881. 

Sir: I have forwarded to the Governor of the State of New York my resigna- 
tion as Senator of the United States for the State of New York. "Will you please 
announce the fact to the Senate? 

With great respect, your obedient servant, T. C. Platt. 

To Hon. C. A. Arthur. 

This was read amid the increasing hnm of astonishment in the 
galleries and on the floor. Mr. Hill, of Georgia, had the cruelty 
to suggest that the officers ought now to be elected. Then Mr. 
Burnside, endeavoring very hard to look as though nothing 
unusual had occurred, rose nervously and presented the report of 
the Foreign Aifairs Committee, recommending the adoption of 
the Morgan-Monroe Doctrine resolution, which he gave notice he 
would call up to-morrow. His carefully prepared report was read, 
but nobody paid the slightest attention to it. All were absorbed 
in the consideration of the step taken by Conkling, its meaning, 
and its probable effect. 

Three days after, William H. Robertson was confirmed Collector 
of the Port of New York, with scarcely a dissenting voice. 

No more exciting and stormy experience ever fell to the lot of 
any Administration than that which marked the first seventy -five 
days of Garfield's. The first days in the Presidential chair are 
full enough of embarrassment without a tremendous struggle with 
a powerful element of the incumbent's own party. A new Presi- 
dent feels that fifty millions of people are watching him critically. 
From the privacy of the citizen's life, the new President passes 
into the most glaring sunlight. He is surrounded by hundreds of 
detectives and spies, and subjected to the most impudent scrutiny. 
Things which all his life have been sacredly private, the sweet 
affections of the fireside, care for parents, anxious consultations 
with the wife, training of the children, all suddenly become pub- 
lic property. The number of coats he wears, the size of his hat, 
the purchase of a new pair of gloves, the dresses of his wife, a 
walk or drive, attendance at church, all these things are spread 
before the eyes of the world in the most exaggerated and distorted 

form. 

33 



514 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

If a member of the Cabinet calls and remains in private con- 
sultation for two hours, the President is said to be the cat's-paw 
of secretary so-and-so. If the same secretary calls again and re- 
mains but five minutes, it is reported that a disagreement has 
occurred, and the said secretary's resignation will be demanded. 
If the President, worn out and disgusted with the besetments of 
office-seekers and the malignant attacks on his character, slips 
away from the cares of State for a day or two, he is said not to be 
earning his salary. If he does not take up with every whispered 
scandal, and call upon Congress for a committee of investigation, 
he is openly charged with corruption and a disposition to cover up 
frauds. If, on the other hand, he docs ask for an investigation, he 
is said to be using his official power to injure his enemies. The 
strain, the worry, the insults, the outrages, the scrutiny, the mis- 
construction, which a new President has to undergo are enough 
for one human heart to bear. Add to this such an unparalleled 
battle as that into w^hich Garfield was forced almost from his in- 
auguration day, and one would think the burden hard to increase. 

But this \tas not all he had to endure. In the midst of the 
storm, his wife, from whom he had so long drawn consolation 
and support, was stricken down with the most malignant form of 
typhoid fever. Dr. Boynton, her home physician, was hastily 
summoned from Ohio. But the sufferer grew worse. This was a 
calamity which no courage, no calm conservatism, no intellectual 
resources, no popular support, could remedy. Up to this time the 
President had kept heart bravely, but the mighty shadow which 
seemed about to darken his life forever, was too much for his 
great, loving soul. Hurrying away from the crowded office of 
State, he sought the sufferer, sat by her side hour after hour, 
denying himself necessary sleep, and nursed her with the most 
devoted care. Every day the papers told of the critical condition 
of the President's wife, and it seemed that her death was an as- 
sured and grievous calamity. The people's hearts swelled with 
sympathy for the suffering husband. Day after day the story of his 
silent watching at the bedside of the wife brought tears unbidden 
to the eye. But the calamity which seemed impending was turned 



IN THE HIGH SEAT.— BRIGHT DAYS. 515 

aside. On the 20th of May, Dr. Boynton announced a slight 
change for the better, which proved permanent. Days and weeks 
were required before Mrs. Garfield could leave her bed, but the 
shadow gradually lifted. 

On the same day that her improvement was announced, the 
Senate of the United States adjourned. The President had sus- 
tained himself. No man ever stood higher in the hearts of the 
people. After his victory, he had returned to the Senate all but 
one of the nominations of Mr. Conkling's friends, which had been 
withdrawn in order to force action one way or the other upon 
Robertson's name. As for Senators Conkling and Piatt, after 
their resignations, they presented themselves to the New York 
Legislature, then in session, as candidates for reelection. The 
story of the memorable struggle at Albany is beyond the scope of 
these pages. Vice-President Arthur, being so closely attached to 
Conkling, was, of course, completely out of harmony with tlie 
administration. He was attached, heartily and honestly, to the 
other side. At one time he said he would resign the Vice-Presi- 
dency if he thought it would benefit Mr. Conkling. But the calm 
level of popular opinion to which President Garfield was so fond 
of referring, was overwhelmingly with him. The prospect was, for 
the first time, comparatively bright. As the weeks passed, Mrs. 
Garfield grew steadily better. The President was wearied by the 
arduous duties of the past three months, and needed a vacation. A 
time or tAvo, in early June, he took his children for an afternoon trip 
to Mount A'ernon. His face grew brighter and his step more elastic. 
As the struggle at Albany proceeded, the Administration steadily 
rose in public esteem, until the admiration of the people knew 
no bounds. The President paid especial attention to his Depart- 
ments. The Star Route cases were pushed with tremendous vigor. 
Irregularities in the Treasury and Naval Departments were dealt 
with most heroically. Altogether the sky was clear, and men 
looked forward to the future with confidence. Mrs. Garfield's 
health being still precarious, the question of where to spend the 
summer was carefully and thoughtfully discussed. 

On the 19th of June, the President and Mrs. Garfield, accom- 



516 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAKFIELD. 

panied by their daughter Mollie, and their two sons, Irvin and 
Abram, Colonel Rockwell and Dr. Boynton and wife, left Wash- 
ington for Long Branch. 

Tlie President, wdth a loving husband's care, secured pleasant 
rooms in a quiet hotel for his wife, where she would get the full 
benefit of the sea breezes. On the 27th of June he returned to 
Washington to hold a cabinet meeting. The session w^as long, but 
characterized by great cordiality. The whole situation was gone 
over, and the President and his Cabinet separated for the summer, 
as they thought, with kindly hope and a multitude of good wishes 
for each other. The President was to return to Long Branch, 
meet his wife and family, and commence a carefully laid out sum- 
mer trip, including a visit to Williams College. The journey to 
Long Branch was not taken till two months later, and the re- 
mainder of the trip never was and never will be taken. 



SHOT DOWN. 517 



CHAPTER XIII. 

SHOT DOWN. 

A wasp flew out upon our fairest son, 

And stung him to the quick with poisoned shaft, 

The while he chatted carelessly and laughed, 
And knew not of th^, fateful mischief done. 
And so this life, amid our love begun, 

Envenomed by the in.*ect's hellish craft, 

Was drunk by Death in one long feverish draught. 
And he was lost — our precious, priceless one! 

Oh, mystery of blind, remorseless fate! 

Oh, cruel end of a most causeless hate ! 

That life so mean should murder life so great! 
What is there left to us who think and feel. 
Who have no remedy, and no appeal, 
But damn the wasp and crush him under heel? — Holland. 

THE Senate had adjourned. The bitterness of the i^olitical 
contest at Albany had subsided. Washington was deserted 
for the summer. Mrs. Garfiekl, slowly recovering from her long 
illness, was regaining health and courage at Long Branch. It was 
the purpose of the President, as soon as the pressing cares and 
anxieties of his great office could be put aside, to join his wife by 
the sea-side, and to enjoy with her a brief respite from the bur- 
dens and distractions which weighed him down. His brief life at 
the White House had been any thing but happy. Sickness had 
entered almost from the date of his occupancy. The political im- 
broglio in the Senate, and afterwards in New York, had greatly 
annoyed him. He had had the mortification of seeing, in the very 
first months of his administration, his party torn with feuds, and 
brought to the verge of disruption. The clamor for office was 
deafening, and he had been obliged to meet and pacify the hungry 
horde that swarmed like locusts around the capital. All this he 
had, during the spring and early summer, met with the equanim- 



518 LIFE OF JAMES A. CxARFIELD. 

ity and dignity becoming his high station. So with the coming of 
July he purposed to rest with his family for a brief season by the 
sea. Afterwards he would visit Williams College and make ar- 
rangements for the admission of his two sons to those same classic 
halls where his own youthful thirst for knowledge had been 
quenched. 

On the morning of the 2d of July — fatal day in the calendar 
of American history — the President made ready ' to put his pur- 
pose into execution. Several members of the Cabinet, headed by 
Secretary Blaine, were to accompany him to Long Branch. A few 
ladies, personal friends of the President's family and one of his 
sons, were of the company ; and as the hour for departure drew 
near, they gathered at the depot of the Baltimore and Potomac 
Eailway to await the train. The President and Secretary Blaine 
were somewhat later than the rest. On the way to the depot the 
Chief Magistrate, always buoyant and hopeful, was more than usu- 
ally joyous, expressing his keen gratification that the relations 
between himself and the members of his Cabinet were so harmoni- 
ous, and that the Administration was a unjt. 

AVhen the carriage arrived at the station at half past nine 
o'clock, the President and Mr. Blaine left it and entered the la- 
dies' waiting-room, which they passed through arm in arm. A 
moment afterwards, as they were passing through the door into 
the main room two pistol shots suddenly rang out upon the air. 
Mr. Blaine saw a man running, and started toward him, but 
turned almost immediately and saw that the Pkksident had 
FALLEN ! It was instantly realized that the shots had been di- 
rected with fatal accuracy at the beloved President. ]Mr, Blaine 
sprang toward him, as did several others, and raised his head from 
the floor. Postmaster-General James, Secretary "SVindom, and 
Secretary Lincoln, who had arrived earlier at the train, were 
promenading on the j^latform outside. They, together with the 
policemen who were on duty in the neighborhood, immediately 
rushed to the spot where their fallen chief lay weltering in blood, 
A moment afterwards the assassin was discovered, and before he 
could lose himself in the crowd the miserable miscreant was con- 



SHOT DOWN.—" OXE CHANCE IX A HI'XDRED." 519 

fronted bv the rigid, 2-»assionate faces and strong uplifted arms of 
those to whom their own lives were but a bauble if they might 
save the President. The dastardly wretch cowered before them, 
and in the middle of B Street, just outside of the depot, was seized 
by the policemen and disarmed. A pistol of very heavy caliber 
Avas wrenched out of his hand, and it became clear that a large 
ball had entered the President's body. The assassin gave his name 
as Charles Jules Guiteau, and begged to be taken safely to jail. 
He was instantly hurried to police headquarters and confined ; and 
it was Avell for him that he was thus out of the way of the angry 
populace, who would not have hesitated to put an instant and 
tragic end to his despicable career. 

The poor President was borne on a couch to a room in the 
second story, and a preliminary examination of his wounds was 
made ; but the ball, Avhich had entered the right side of his back, 
near the spinal column and immediately over the hip bone, could 
not be found. The suiferer moaned at intervals, but otherwise ut- 
tered no complaint ; was conscious at all times except when under the 
influence of opiates, and was cheerful. When, in answer to his eager 
question, the physicians informed him that he had "one chance in 
a hundred" of living, he said calmly and bravely: "Th^n, doctor, 
we will take that chance!" Before he was removed from the 
depot his heart turned anxiously to his wife, and to her he dic- 
tated, by Colonel Rockwell, the following touching an/i loyal dis- 
patch : 
"Mrs. lAicretla R. Garfield: 

"The President wishes me to say to you from him that he has been 
seriously hurt. How seriously he can not yet say. He is himself, and 
hopes you will come to him soon. He sends his love to you. 

"A. F. Rockwell." 

Colonel H. C. Corbin, Assistant Adjutant-General, immediately 
telegraphed for a special train to convey Mrs. Garfield to Wash- 
ington, and frequent dispatches, giving the latest intelligence of 
the President's condition, were sent to meet her at different sta- 
tions. In a few minutes after the shooting several physicians were 
beside the Avounded President. First of those who were summoned 



520 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

Avas Dr. D. ^V. Bliss, who from first to last remained in charge as 
chief attending surgeon. Associated with him were Surgeon- 
General J. K. Barnes and Drs. J. J. Woodward and Robert Bey- 
burn. It was at once determined to remove the President to the 
White House at the earliest practicable moment. Within a half 
hour preparations to that end had been made. At ten o'clock 
every thing was in readiness. The main room of the depot build- 
ing was cleared, and in a few moments the wounded President 
was borne through the building and placed in an ambulance which 
was in waiting on the outside. He bore the removal with great 
fortitude, not uttering a complaint or groan. The ambulance was 
surrounded by a cordon of jiolice, and the horses were whipped 
into a gallop all the way to the White House. An excited crowd 
followed at a run, but were stopped at the White House, and none 
but a select few admitted, 

ISIeanwhile tlie excitement was at fever heat throughout the 
panic-struck city. Even before leaving the depot the pressure 
for admittance to the room where the President was lying was so 
great that the police could not keep back the crowd. Men per- 
sisted that they must see the President, despite the surgeons' or- 
ders that the room and hallways must not be filled up. Upon 
the arrival uf the ambulance' at the White House the gates of the 
Executive grounds were immediately closed and guarded by sol- 
diers and policemen, and nobody was admitted without authority 
from the President's private secretary. Those members of the 
Cabinet who were not at the depot Avhen the shooting took place 
were immediately summoned, and all of them remained in attend- 
ance at the Executive Mansion during the day. 

After the President's removal, he l)egan to reiict from the first 
shock of tlie wound. Several encouraging dispatches were sent 
out. At 11:30 A. M. the first official bulletin was issued by the 
physicians in tittendance. It was as follows: 

"The President has returned to liis normal condition. Will make 
uuotlier examination soon. His pulse is now 63." 

An hour later a second bulletin was issued: 



SHOT DOWN.— THE ASSASSIN. 521 

"The reaction from the shot injury has been very gradual. The 
patient is sutfering some pain, but it is thought best not to disturb him 
bv making an exploration for the ball until after the consultation at 
3' p. M." 

From that hour, however, the symptoms became unfavorable; 
and at 2 : 45 P. M. the following unofficial dispatch was issued : 

" Executive Mansion, 2 : 45 p. m. 
"No official bulletin has been furnished by Dr. Bhss since 1 o'clock. 
The condition of the President has been growing more unfavorable since 
that time. Internal hemorrhage is taking place, and the gravest fears 
are felt as to the result." 

As yet no critical knowledge of the President's injury had been 
reached. There was nothing on which the people could base a 
judgment of the reTative probabilities of recovery and death. The 
shadows of evening gathered, and the darkness of night settled 
over fifty millions of sorrowing people. 

The minds of all naturally reverted to the assassin. The hope 
was cherished that he would prove to be a lunatic or madman, 
and that the American people would thus be spared the horrid 
contemplation of a cold-blooded attempt against the life of the 
noble statesman who had been called by the voice of his country- 
men to the highest place of honor. This hope, however, was 
soon dispelled. The assassin was found to be a mixture of fool 
and fanatic, who, in his previous career, had managed to build up, 
on a basis of total depravity, a considerable degree of scholarship. 
He was a lawyer by profession, and had made a pretense of prac- 
ticing in several places — more particularly in Chicago. In that 
city and elsewhere he had made a reputation both malodorous and 
detestable. In the previous spring, about the time of the inau- 
guration, he had gone to Washington to advance a claim to be 
Consul-General at Paris. He had sought and obtained interviews 
with both the President and Mr. Blaine, and pretended to believe 
that the former was on the point of dismissing the present consul 
at Paris to make a place for himself! Hanging about the Execu- 



5 2 '2 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

live Mansion and tlie Department of State for several weeks, lie 
seems to have conceived an intense hatred of the President, and 
to have determined on the commission of the crime. Unless his 
motive can be found in this, it would seem impossible to discover 
for Avhat reason his foul and atrocious deed was committed. In 
the whole history of crime, it would, perhaps, be impossible to 
find a single example of a criminal with a moral nature so de- 
praved and loathsome as that displayed by Guiteau in the cell to 
which he was consigned. 

The second day. — The morning was anxiously awaited. The 
first news from Washington gave grounds of hope. The Presi- 
dent's mind had remained clear, and his admirable courage had 
had a marked effect in staying his bodily powers against the fear- 
ful effects of the wound. Mrs. Garfield had, meanwhile, reached 
Washington, and was at her husband's bed-side. Both were hope- 
ful against the dreadful odds, and both resolved to face the issue 
with unfaltering trust. In the course of the early morning the 
President was able to take nourishment, thus gaining a small 
measure of that strength so needful in the coming struggle. The 
morning bulletins from the attending surgeons were as follows- 

" Washington, July 3, 2 : 45 a. m. 

" The President has been quietly sleeping much of the time since 9 

p. M., awakening for a few moments every half hour. He has not 

vomited since 1 a. m., and is now taking some nourishment for the first 

time since his injury. Pulse, 124; temperature, normal; respiration, 18. 

"D. W. Bliss, M. D. 
" 4 A. M.— The President has just awakened, greatly refreshed, and 
has not vomited since 1 A. m., having taken milk and lime-water on 
each occasion, frequently asking for it. Pulse, 120— fuller and of de- 
cidedly more character; temperature, 98 2-10; respiration, 18. The 
patient is decidedly more cheerful, and has amused himself and watchers 
bv telling a laughable incident of his early career. 

-D. W. Bliss, M. D. 

"6 a. m.— The President's rest has been refreshing during the night, 
and only broken at intervals of about half hours by occasional pain in 
the feet, and to take his nourishment of milk and lime-water and bits 



SHOT DOWX.— QUEEN VICTORIA'S SYMPATHY. 523 

of cracked ice, to relieve the thirst, which ha? been constant. He is 
cheerful and hopeful, and has from the first manifested the most remark- 
able courage and fortitude. 

"7:50 A. M. — This morning the physicians decide that no effort will 
be made at present to extract the ball, as its presence in the location de- 
termined does not necessarily interfere with the ultimate recovery of the 
President. 

"7:57 A. M.— ]\Iost of the members of the Cabinet who watched 
at the Executive Mansion last night remained until a late hour this 
morning. 

" 11 A. M. — The President's condition is greatly improved. He secures 
sufficient refreshing sleep ; and, during his waking hours, is cheerful, and 
is inclined to discuss pleasant topics. Pulse, 106 — with more full and 
safe expression; tem2:)erature and respiration, normal. 

" D. W. Bliss, M. D." 

In the afternoon of the second memorable day, however, the 
President's symptoms grew worse, and news well calculated to 
Alarm was telegraphed to all parts of the country. Of one thing 
there could be no doubt, and that was that the heart of the Na- 
tion was stirred to its profoundest depths, and that the whole civil- 
ized world was in sympathy Avith the American people and their 
stricken head. In London the news created the profoundest sen- 
sation. The Queen, from AVindsor Palace, at once telegraphed to 
learn the flicts, and then ordered her Minister of Foreign Affairs 
to send the following dispatch: 

" To Sir Edward TJwmton, British Embassy, Washington: The Queen 
desires that you will at once express the horrf)r with which she has 
learned of the attempt upon the President's life, and her earnest hope 
for his recovery. Her Majesty Avishes for full and immediate reports as 
to his condition. Lord Granville." 

From almost every civilized nation came similar messages of 
sympathy. Hardly a distinguished man in America failed to go 
on record in some way to express his horror and detestation of 
the crime that had been committed. The spirit of party was ut- 
terly forgotten. The South and the North were at last as one. 



524 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

The old Southern soldiers who had fought many a fierce battle 
under Lee and Johnston, as well as the legionaries who sprang 
up at the call of Lincoln, burst into tears at the thought of Gar- 
field bleeding! 

The afternoon bulletins of this first sad Sunday of July were 
well calculated to excite apprehension. The physicians said: 

"2 p. M. — The President has slept a good deal since last bulletin, 
though occasionally suffering from jjaiu in both feet and ankles. Pulse, 
10-i; respiration, 18 ; temperature, nearly normal. While the President is 
by no means out of danger, yet his symptoms continue favorable. 

" D. W. Bliss, M. D. 
"6 p. M. — There is no appreciable danger since last bulletin. The 
President sleeps well at intervals. Pulse, 108; temperature and respiration 
normal. " D. W. Bllss, 

" J. K. Barnes, 
"J. J. Woodward. 
" 10: 30 p. M. — The condition of the President is less favorable. Pulse, 
120 ; temperature, 100 ; respiration, 20. He is more restless, and again 
complains of the pain in his feet. "D. W. Bliss, 

"J, K. Barnes, 
"J. J. Woodward, 
"Robert Reyburn." 

The third day. — For the American people the morning sun of 
the Glorious Fourth shed only a disastrous twilight. Never before 
did this vast and sensitive citizenship waken to the realization of 
such a Fourth. In almost all parts of the country preparations 
had been made to observe the day M'ith more than the usual 
outburst of patriotism. All this was turned to doubt and sorrow. 
The orator could speak of nothing but the wounded President and 
his probable fate. The people would hear nothing but dispatches 
that told of either reviving hope or coming despair. In many 
cities and country places the celebration was wholly abandoned; 
in others the ceremonies were changed so as to be in keeping with 
the great national calamity. The people sat down in the shadow 
of their grief and waited for the worst. 

On the morning of the Fourth the distinguished Dr. D. Hayes 



SHOT DOWK-SURGEONS' CONSULTATION. 525 

Agnew, of Philadelphia, and Dr. Frank H, Hamilton, of New 
York City, arrived at Washington, having been called thither as 
consulting surgeons. On their arrival they made a critical exam- 
ination of the President's condition and the method of treatment 
adopted by the physicians in charge, and thereupon issued the 
following bulletin: 

" Executive Mansion, 8:15 a. m. 
"We held a consultation with the physicians in charge of the Presi- 
dent's case at 7 o'clock this morning, and ajjprove in every particular of 
the management and of the course of treatment that has been pursued. 

" Frank H. Hamilton, of New York. 

" D. H, Agnew, of Philadelphia." 

The regular announcement appeared at the same time and carried 
to the people, far as the lightning's wings could bear it, the follow- 
ing message: 

" 8: 15 A. M. — The condition of the President is not materially different 
from that reported in the last bulletin (12:30 A. M.). He has dozed at 
intervals during the night, and at times has complained of ihe pain in his 
feet. The tympanitis has not sensibly increased. Pulse, 108 ; temper- 
ature, 99.4 ; respiration, 19. 

" D. W. Bliss, " Robert Reyburn, 

"J. K. Barnes, " Frank H. Hamilton, 

"J. J. Woodward, " D. Hayes Agnew." 

To this bulletin was added the report of a free conversation with 
Dr. Bliss, in which he said of the President's condition and 
prospects : 

" I admit that his state is very precarious, and the balance of proba- 
bilities is not in his favor, and yet there is reasonable ground for hope. 
We can not say that he is better or wprse than he was last night, except 
that he has gained eight hours of time, and his strength appears not to 
have decUned, The symptoms of peritoneal inflammation are not more 
grave now than they were eight hours ago." 

The morning wore away in suspense, and the noonday report of 
the physicians was anxiously awaited. It was felt, however, that 
every hour now added to the President's life was a fair indication 



526 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

that he would have some chance iu the final struggle for recovery. 
Just after noon the following report was issued by the surgeons : 

" 12 : 30 p. M. — There has been but little change in the President's 
condition since the last bulletin. Comjjlains much less of the pain in his 
feet. Light vomiting occasionally. Pulse, 110; temperature, 100; 
respiration, 24. "D. W. Bliss, "J. J. Woodward, 

"J. K. Barnes, " Robert Reyburx." 

Meanwhile a diagnosis of the President's condition had been 
made, and though there was not entire unanimity as to the course 
of the ball and the consequent character of the wound, yet the 
physicians gave it as their opinion — some of them positively so 
declaring — that the ball, after striking the President's back above 
the twelfth rib and about two and a half inches to the right of the 
spine, had plunged forward and downward, fracturing the rib, 
penetrating the peritoneal cavity, piercing the loAver lobe of the 
liver, and lodging perhaps in the front wall of the abdomen. The 
treatment during the first week after the President was wounded 
was based upon this diagnosis, but gradually thereafter the idea 
that the ball had traversed the body in the manner indicated was 
abandoned and a modified theory adopted in its stead.* 

* The great error, as subsequently developed in the diagnosis of the President's 
case, seems clearly to ha%'e arisen from the fact, that although the relative position 
of the assassin and his victim wei-e definitely ascertained and could be precisely 
marked on the floor of the depot, yet (he axial position of the President's body seems 
never to have been considered / It seems to have been taken for granted that because 
the wound was in the back, therefore the assassin must have stood behind the 
President when he fired. So, in one sense, he undoubtedly did, but in another he 
did not. The murderer's position was five feet away and rather to the right side of the 
Chief Magistrate, and Guiteau should therefore be said to have stood at an acute 
side-angle and a little in the rear of his victim. This being the real position of the 
President and his assailant, it will readily be seen that the ball, instead of being 
"deflected," as has been so many times reiterated, really was very little turned 
from its course, but plunged straight across the President's back, going deeper and 
deej)er as it proceeded, until, having fractured the spine in front, it was lodged in 
the tliick tissues to tho left of the vertebral column. If the assassin had fired 
s()uare at the President's back, and the ball had struck where it did strike, the 
President would have been a dead man from the start. The axial position of the 
body was manifestly overlooked in making the diagnosis. 



SHOT DOWN.— MESSAGES OF SYMPATHY. 527 

As the Fourth wore away the fear of immediate death somewhat 
subsided. At half-past seven in the evening the surgeons' bulletin 
carried the following message to the public: 

"7:35 p. M. — The President this evening is not so comfortable. He 
does not suffer so much from pain in the feet. The tymjianitis is again 
more noticeable. Pulse, 126; temperature, 101.9; respiration, 24. 
Another bulletin will be issued at 10 p. m., after which, in order not to 
disturb the President unnecessarily, no further bulletins will be issued 
until to-morrow morning. 

"D. W. Bliss, "J. J. "^Voodward, 

"J. K. Barnes, "Robert Reyburn." 

Taken all in all the advices during the day respecting the Pres- 
ident's condition had been more encouraging than those of the dav 
before, when despondency seemed to be making itself generally 
felt in Washington and throughout the country. 

An unofficial bulletin at midnight — the last issued for the dav 

announced a further improvement, the pulse and temperature 
having again changed slightly for the better. At that hour the 
President was sleeping quietly. The peritoneal inflammation had 
decreased somewhat during the evening, and there was, generally 
speaking, a larger ground for hope. During the day from the 
extremes of the earth had come the profoundest expressions of 
sorrow for the great calamity to the Eepublic. From Prince 
Charles, of Bucharest, was received the following touching 
dispatch : 

"Bucharest, Catrocixi, July 4, ISSl. 
" To President Garfield, Washington: 

"I have learned with the greatest indignation, and deplore most 
deeply, the horrible attempt against your precious life, and beg you tc 
accept my warmest wishes for your quick recovery. Charles." 

On the same day from far-off Japan this message of svmpathy 

was sent to the Minister resident of the Royal Government at 

Washington : 

,.„ ^, ... ^ " ToKio, Julv 4, 1S81. 

10 loshida, Japanese Minister, Washington: 

" The dispatch announcing an attempt upon the life of the President 



628 LIFE OF JAMES A, GARFIELD. 

has caused here profound sorrow, and you are hereby instructed to 
convey, in the name of His Majesty, to the Government of the United 
States, the deepest sympathy and hope that his recovery Avill be speedy. 
Make immediate and full report regarding the sad event. 

" WOOYERO, 

"Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs." 

So the sun went down upon the national anniversary, and the 
stars of the summer night looked upon an anxious and stricken 
people. 

The fourth day. — The morning of the 5th of July broke with 
a more cheerful message. The President was decidedly better. 
The improvement in his condition was noticed shortly before 
midnight of Monday, and had become marked. The first bul- 
letin of the morning was so reassuring that the feeling of relief 
became general, and a cheerful hopefulness succeeded the dread 
of the previous day. The crowds of anxious people in all parts 
of the country returned slowdy to their vocations — not, indeed, 
with a feeling of security, but with a good degree of hope for the 
President's ultimate recovery. The members of the Cabinet ex- 
perienced such a sense of relief that they were enabled to give 
consideration to their official duties. The President's physicians, 
W'hile not taking a sanguine view of his case, did not discourage 
the hope of final recovery. The President — so said the bulletins — 
took nourishment and retained it. His pulse was lower through- 
out the day, and altogether his symptoms were such as to afford 
no little encouragement. The first official bulletin was issued at 
half-past eight in the morning. It was as follows : 

"8:30 A. M. — The President has passed a comfortable night, and his 
condition this morning is decidedly more favorable. There has been no 
vomiting since last evening at 8 o'clock, and he has been able to retain 
the liquid nourishment administered. There is less tympanitis and no 
abdominal tenderness except in the wounded region. Pulse, 114; temper- 
ature, 100.5; respiration, 24. 

"D. W. Bliss, "J. J. AVoodward, 

"J. K. Barnes, " Kobekt Pieyburn." t 



SHOT DOWX.— ENCOURAGING SYMPTOMS. 529 

Drs. Agnew and Hamilton had both, in the meantime, been 
called to their homes. To them the attending surgeons commu- 
nicated their views of the President's condition more fully in a 
message during the forenoon, as follows: 

" Executive Man-;iox, 9:30 a. m. 
" After you left the urgent symptom continued. Tliere was much rest- 
lessness, constant slight vomiting, and by 8 o'clock p. M. the President's 
condition seemed even more serious than when you saw him. Since then 
the symptoms have gradually become more favorable. There has been 
no vomiting nor I'egurgitation of fluid from the stomach since 8 o'clock last 
evening. 

"The Piesident has slept n good deal during the night, and this morning 
expresses himself as comparatively comfortable. The s})asraodic pains in 
the lower extremities have entirely disappeared, leaving behind, however, 
much muscular soreness and tenderness to the touch. There is less tym- 
panitis, and no abdominal tenderness whatever, except in the hepatic 
region. Since 8 P. M. he has taken an ounce and a-half of chicken broth 
every two hours, and has retained all. The wound was again dressed 
antiseptically this morning. Altogether but one-half a grain of moiphia 
has been administered hypodermically during the last twenty-four hours, 
and it lias been found quite sufficient. His pulse, however, still keeps 
u]). At 8:30 a. m. it was 114; temperature, 100.5; respiration, 24. 
Seventy-two hours have now ehipsed since the wound was received. We 
can not but feel encouraged this morning, although, of course, we do not 
overlook any of the perils that still beset tiie path toward recovery. The 
course of treatment agreed upon will be steadily pursued, 
"D. W. Bliss, "J. J. Woodward, 

"J. K. Barnes, " Kobert Kkyburn." 

In the course of the day the feeling of confidence grew apace. 
There were not wanting many grave apprehensions, the most seri- 
ous of all being the fear that the dreaded peritonitis would set in 
and destroy the President's life. But the hours crept by, and no 
symptoms of such inflammation appeared. The President, though 
restless and somewhat weakened, kept in good courage; and dur- 
ing the forenoon, awaking from sleep, denounced with not a little 
spirit the " wishy-washy " food which the doctors prescribed for 
him. During the day it was quite clearly determined from the 
34 



530 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

natural indications of the case, that, contrary to the previously 
expressed views of the attending physicians, the President's inter- 
nal organs had not been perforated by the ball. This discovery 
gave additional grounds of hope. The noonday bulletin strength- 
ened rather than discouraged the idea of ultimate recovery : 

" 12:30 p. M. — The favorable condition of the symptoms reported in 
the last bulletin continues. There has heen no recurrence of the vomiting. 
Pulse, 110; temperature, 101; respiration, 24. The President lies at 
present in a natural sleep. No further bulletins Avill be issued till 8:30 
p. M. , unless in case of an unfavorable change. 

" D. W. Bliss, "J. J, Woodward, 

" J. K. Barnes, " Robert Eeyburn." 

Under the assurances given by the surgeons the people began 
to find time to discuss the collateral circumstances of the crime, 
the character of the criminal, what should be his punishment, the 
course of events in case of President Garfield's death, and the 
danger in general to bo apprehended from political assassins. At 
first it was believed that the criminal had committed the deed on 
account of rebuffs received in seeking an appointment. This, 
Guiteau himself stoutly denied, declaring that he had tried to 
destroy the President wholly and solely for the good of ihe coun- 
try, and at the command of God! He had been influenced only 
by high and patriotic motives! When the people came to under- 
stand the reasons why he had shot the President, against whom 
he had not the slightest enmity, they would change their mind as 
to him and his deed ! Every utterance of the monstrous villain 
was of the self-same character, and to all his loathsome speeches was 
added a disgusting egotism and cowardice which he constantly 
exhibited in his cell. 

Many incidents in the previous life of Guiteau came to the surface 
and were published. It was found that he had come to Wash- 
ington shortly after March 4th. On April 8th, he made his appear- 
ance at the Navy Department library and registered his name on 
the visitors' book. He returned on April 14, and from that time 
up to the time of the adlournment of the Senate he was a daily 



SHOT DOWN.— GUITEAU'S LITERARY TASTE. 531 

visitor. On one occasion he had told the librarian, Captain J. 
Ross Browne, that he was going to be appointed Consnl to Paris. 
He had been on hand every day, sometimes before the library was 
opened, and remained all day. He had never shown himself very 
commnnicative, and when spoken to he responded in monosyllables. 
He seemed to be of a morose disposition, but was quiet and orderly 
in his manner. While in the library he sat in a corner reading a 
book. He had thus read Lang's American Battles, and frequently 
called for the manual of the Consular Service, over which he would 
sit pouring for hours. The last book he had read was John Eussell 
Young's Tour of General Grant Mr. Browne one day said to him : 
" I should think if you wanted a place you ought to be up at the 
Senate or at the State Department. Some one will get ahead of 
you." "I can attend to my own aifairs," was the j-ather sullen 
retort, and then glancing up suspiciously, he asked : " Have you 
told any one about my place?" Further efforts at conversation 
he persistently repulsed. 

The possible event of the President's death was a subject of the 
gravest anxiety. It was well known that Vice-President Arthur 
had not, in the recent imbroglio between the friends of the ad- 
ministration and Senator Conkling, been in sympathy with the 
President. It Avas to the Senator indeed that General Arthur owed 
his nomination. And so among the immediate supporters of the 
President and a large part of the people generally, there were, in 
prospect of the Chief Magistrate's death, deep forebodings of a dis- 
astrous reversal of the policy of the government and a universal 
uproar in the circles of office-holding. General Arthur became 
the central figure among the possibilities of the future. To the 
Vice-President the situation was exceedingly trying ; but fortunately 
for the good name of the Republic he so demeaned himself as to 
win universal respect. His whole bearing from the day of the 
crime to the close of the scene was such as to indicate the profound- 
est sorrow and anxiety. His forbearance from comment, beyond 
giving expression to his grief, was noticed as the result of the ex- 
ercise of sound common sense under trying circumstances, and the 
hasty opinions which had been expressed in many quarters when the 



532 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

worst was feared, were quickly revised and recalled.* General Arthur 
visited the Executive Mansion on the afternoon of the 5th, and 
remained for an hour in conversation with members of the Cabinet. 
He did not see the President, the physicians deeming it unwise to 
admit him. The members of the Cabinet, however, spoke of him 
in terms of warm friendliness, feeling that he fully shared with them 
the sympathy and sorrow which they entertained in common with 
the Nation at large. 

The evening bulletin, issued at half-past eight o'clock, was briefly 
as follows : 

"8 : 30 p. M. — The condition of the President continues as favorable as 
at the last bulletin. Pulse, 106; temperature, 100.9; respiration, 24. No 
further bulletin will be issued till to-morrow morning, unless in case of 
an unfavorable change. 

"D. W. Bliss, "J. J. Woodward, 

"J. K. Barnes, " Egbert Reyburn," 

At eleven o'clock of this (Tuesday) evening, Secretary Blaine 
sent out a dispatch announcing, as the result of the day, " a sub- 
stantial gain." 

The fifth day. — It was now the crisis of summer. The intense 
heat was an unfavorable circumstance with which the physicians 
in charge of the wounded President had to contend. Wednesday 
was ushered in with a fearfully high temperature. In order to 
relieve the President as far as possible from the oppression caused 
by the intense heat^ the attending physicians put into operation a 
simple^ refrigerating apparatus, which it was thought would render 
the atmosphere of his room much more comfortable than it had 

*The only farcical thing which has happened in connection with the dark 
tragedy has been the miserable and ludicrous shuffling of the base crowd of office- 
liolders and office-seekers wliich clung to General Garfield's skirts, denouncing and 
abusing General Arthur and his friends until the possibility of his accession to 
power dawned on the minds of the patriots. The quickness which they displayed 
in discovering the latent virtues of the Vice-President and advancing themselves 
to the rank of his most ardent supporters, even before the illustrious dead was 
consigned to his grave, was a picture full of the most disgusting subserviency of 
the place-hunter. 



SHOT DOWK-BETTER SYMPTOMS. 533 

been hitherto. It consisted of a number of troughs of galvanized 
iron, about ten inches in width and fourteen feet in length, placed 
on the floor along the Avails, and filled with water and broken ice. 
Over these troughs, and corresponding with them in length, were 
suspended sheets of flannel, the lower edges of Avhich were immersed 
in the ice-water which filled the troughs. The water was thus 
absorbed and carried upward by capillary attraction in the flannel, 
as oil is in the wick of a lamp, until the sheets were saturated. 
This cold water, both by direct contact with the air, and by the 
rapid evaporation which took place over the extended surface of 
the saturated flannel, lowered the temperature of the room. Very 
soon after this apparatus Avas put into operation, it made a per- 
ceptible change in the temperature, and the President was greatly 
refreshed. The morning bulletin Avas given to the public at half- 
])ast eight. It said : 

" 8 : 30 A. M. — The President has passed a most comfortable night, and 
has slept- Avell. His condition has remained throughout as favorable as 
when tlie last bulletin Avas issued. The pulse is becoming less frequent, 
and is now 98 ; temperature, 98.4; respiration, 23. 

• "D. W. Bliss, "J. J. Woodwaud, 

"J. K. Barnes, Robert Reyburn." 

This Avas decidedly the best report Avhich the physicians had yet 
been able to make. The effect Avas immediate and wide-spread. 
What might almost be called a feeling of confidence supervened; 
the channels of trade flowed on, and the people Avere elated at the 
prospect of a complete restoration to life and the duties of his 
high office of him Avhom their votes had raised to that high emi- 
nence. In all parts of the Avorld expressions of sympathy con- 
tinued to be given and transmitted to our Government. 

His Majesty, the Emperor of Germany, inquired with great 
anxiety about the condition of President Garfield, and directed his 
Charge' d'Affaircs, Count Beust, to inform him thereof by eal»lo. 
In consequence of Count Beust's report, His Majesty ordered liim 
to express to Secretary Blaine his satisfaction on account of the 
favorable information, and his best Avishes for the speedy recovery 



634 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

of the President. Count Beast, in obedience to the wishes of his 
Government, and in manifestation of his personal sympathy, called 
three times during the day at the Elxecutive Mansion. 
The noonday bulletin was brief, but satisfactory : 

"12:o0 p. M. — The President* remains quite as comfortable as at the 
(late of the last bulletin. He takes his nourishment well. Pulse, 100; 
temperature, U9.7; respiratioUj 23. 

"D. W. Bliss, "J. J. .Woodward, 

"J. K. Barnes, "Robert Re yburn." 

Presently, after ^hi.s report was made, the attending physicians 
sent to the consulting surgeons a somewhat lengthy dispatch, 
stating in detail the progress of the President's case. The generaii 
effect of thus, as well as of the previous bulletin, was further to 
allay public anxiety and to strengthen the belief that the Presi- 
dent would triumph in the fearful struggle w^hich he was making 
against the effects of his Avouncl. And to this end, whatever the 
faith and hope of a great and sincere people could do to alleviate 
and save was gladly and earnestly given in sympathy and words 
of cheer. The bulletin of the evening was in the same general 
tone as the two preceding. It said : 

" 8 : 30 p. M. — The President's condition continues as favorable as at 
last report. He has jiassed a vqry comfortable day, taking more nour- 
ishment than yesterday. Pulse, 104; temi^erature, 100.6; respiration, 
23. Unless unfavorable symptoms develop, no further bulletins will be 
issued until to-morrow morning. 

'•D W. Bliss, "J. J. Woodward, 

"J. K. Barnes, " Robert Re yburn." 

Altogether, the day was the least eventful — certainly the least 
exciting— of any since the great crime was connnitted. Discus- 
sions as tc the character of the President's injury, and of the 
prol)able dis}X>sition of Guitcau, took the place of those eager 
inquiries and indignant comments of the first few days after the 
deed was done. 

The sixth dai/. — The morning brought nothing in the nature of 



SHOT DOWN.— PUBLIC CONFIDENCE IMPROVED. 



535 



the unexpected, in relation to the President's condition or his sur- 
roundings. If his chances for recovery had not advanced, tliey 
had at least not become less than on the previous day. Callers at 
the White House came and departed in considerable numbers, and 
the natural tendency of the human mind to build high hopes upon 
narrow foundations, served to keep the general public, as well a.s 
those having more intimate relations with the President, in ex- 
cellent spirits. While a 
hundred dangers yet sur- 
rounded the path toward 
restored health, confidence 
that the courageous Chief 
Magistrate would travel 
that path in safety, pre- 
vailed more and more. 
During the day Dr. Boyn- 
ton, of Cleveland, for a 
long time the friend of 
the President's family, 
and recently the attend- 
ing physician in the case 
of Mrs. Garfield's pro- 
tracted illness, reached 
Washington, and al- 
though not invited to be- 
come one of the consult- 
ing surgeons, he took his 

place as an attendant upon the President, and remained near him 
to the end. The morning bulletin was almost sanguine in its tone: 

"Tiie President has parsed a most comfortable night, and continues 
steadily to improve. • He is cheerful, and asks for additional food. 
Pulse, 94; temperature, 99.1; respiration, 23. Tliere will be no further 
bulletins issued until 1 o'clock." 

This report incited additional hope, and the belief prevailed 
more and more, both in medical circles and among the people at 




FRANK H. HAMILTON. 



536 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

large, that the President would win the battle. One of the epi- 
sodes of the day was the publication of a letter from Senator Conk- 
ling, which, though mainly an earnest expression of sympathy for 
the President and his family, was largely devoted to the question 
as to whether a discrimination should not be made in the punish- 
ment of attempted murder, based on the rank of the person assailed. 
The distinction was drawn between murder, which seems to re- 
<i[uire the same punishment whoever may be the victim, and the 
attempt to murder. The Senator's letter was addressed to Attorney- 
General MacVeagh, and was as follows: 

"Fifth Avenue Hotel, New York, July 5, 1881. 

"ili?/ Dear Sir: In the abhorrence with which all decent men alike 
shudder at the attempt to murder the President, I have given thouglit to 
a matter to which your attention may or may not have turned. Our 
criminal code treats premeditated homicide in all cases alike, irrespective 
of the victim. Murder being visited by the greatest }:)enalty, })erliaps no 
distinction between one case and another could be founded on tlie public 
relations held by the person slain. But in case of attempt to murder 
broad distinctions can be made between assailing the life of an individual, 
and an attempt to take a life of special value to the whole people. The 
shocking occurrence of Saturday I think demands tliat the definition and 
punishment of assaults aimed at high executive officers, whether successful 
or not, should be made thoroughly rigorous. The man who attempts the 
life of the President, if morally responsible, commits an offense which the 
Nation ought to guard against, and punish by the exertion of all the 
power civilized nations may employ. I suggest this as deserving consid- 
eration. 

"My profound sympathies are with the President, and with all of you 
every hour. The conflict of reports keeps hope and fear striving with 
each other, with nothing stable except faith and trust, that the worst is 
overpassed. I wish you would express to the President my deepest sym- 
pathy in this hour, which should hush all discords and enlist all prayers 
for his safe deliverance. Please also give to Mrs. Garfield my most re- 
spectful condolence. Trusting that all will be well, cordially yours. 

"ROSCOE CONKLING." 

In the early afternoon another bulletin was issued by the sur- 
geons. The report said : 



SHOT DOWN.— CONDITION STILL FAVOKABLE. 



537 



"The condition of the President continues quite as favorable as this 
morning. Pulse, 100; temperature, 100.8; resjjiration, 23. Unless some 
unfavf.rable change should occur no furtlier bulletin will be issued until 
8:30 p. M." 

It Avas noticed during the day that the preparations made by 
the surgeons in attendance on the President indicated their belief 
in a long illness, and 

the public came to ^'l<^^^^^5g^ 

understand that an "'^ 

indefinite period of 
suspense might be 
anticipated. As it re- 
lated to the criminal, 
it was clear that he 
M'ould simply be held 
in custody until such 
time as might, by the 
recovery or death of 
his victim, indicate 
the technical charac- 
ter of the crime com- 
mitted, and the pun- 
ishment consequent 
thereon. The bulle- 
tins sent abroad by 
Secretary Blaine dur- 
ing the day, espe- 
cially the one directed 
to Minister White at 

Berlin, stated that for the preceding thirty-six hours the improve- 
ment in the President's condition had been steady and constant^ 
and the evening report of the attending surgeons was essentially a 
repetition of that issued in the afternoon. 

The seventh day. — With the morning of Friday there was prac- 
tically no change to record in the President's condition. He had 
passed the night as usual, sleeping and waking at intervals. The 




538 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

weather was excessively hot. Many contrivances and machines 
were invented and offered to the autliorities, the purpose of which 
was to reduce, by mechanical means, the temperature of the Presi- 
dent's apartment. Several of these instruments were tried, and 
one, invented by Mr. Dorsey, a skillful mining engineer, was se- 
lected and set up in the Executive Mansion. The temperature of 
the room where the patient lay was thus brought under control 
and reduced to the desired degree. The morning bulletin of the 
surgeons was considered especially favorable: 

"The condition of the President continues favorable. He is more com- 
fortable than on any previous morning. Pulse, 96; temperature, 102; 
respiration, 23. The wound is beginning to discharge laudable pus." 

Soon after this report was issued, however, there was an unfa- 
vorable turn in the case, and one of those flurries of excitement, 
so common in the subsequent history of the President's progress, 
occurred. The President grew restless, and complained of weari- 
ness. The temperature and pulse and respiration ran up, indicat- 
ing the presence of considerable fever. This change, however, was 
explained by the physicians as the necessary concomitant of sup- 
puration then beginning in the wound. The noonday bulletin 
was brief: 

■ "12:30 p. M. — The progress of the President's case continues to be 
favorable. Pulse, 108; temperature, 101.4; respiration, 24." 

One of the marked circumstances attending the tragic event, the 
course of which is outlined in these pages, was the universal de- 
sire of the American people to do something, to contribute towards 
the President's recovery. It would be vain to attempt to enu- 
merate the thousand and one expedients and suggestions which, 
out of the goodness of the popular heart, came from every direc- 
tion. Each out of his own nature added his own gift. The poet 
contributed his verse; the physician, his cure; the inventor, his 
contrivance; the gardener, his choicest cluster; and even the 
crazy beldam, her modicum of witchcraft. From the center of 
the crowded city to the remotest corners of the prairie the slight- 
est syllable of iudiifercnce to the President's condition would have 



SHOT DO W^\— LETTERS OF SYMPATHY. 539 

been instantly resented — first witli a looli of contempt and then 
witli a blow. The evening bulletin, though pitched in a tone of 
encouragement, still indicated fever: 

"8 p. M. — The President's condition continues favorable. He has 
passed a very comfortable afternoon, and has taken more nutriment than 
on previous days. Pulse, 108; temperature, 101.3; respiration, 24. The 
conditions continue so favorable that there will be no i'urther bulletin 
until to-morrow morning." 

During the day a brief but touching dispatch was received from 
the surviving members of the family of the Marquis de LaFayette. 
Another message came from St. Petersburg expressing, as well it 
might, the horror of the Czar and his government for the crime of 
assassination.^ A third was received from the jninister for foreign 
affairs of the Argentine Republic, expressing the sorrow of that 
government for the great crime which had darkened the annals of 
American history. 

The eighth day. — A week had now elapsed since the President 
was wounded. Plis condition was not materially changed. His 
will and courage were unimpaired, and the reports of the surgeons 
and attendants indicated — indeed positively declared — a continual 
improvement. During the day, for the first time since the Presi- 
dent was wounded, the three younger members of his family were 
permitted to visit their father, one at a time. The President had 
repeatedly asked for them, but it had not been thought advisable 
to gratify his wish before. Vice-President Arthur also called 
during the morning. 

The morning bulletin appeared as usual, and was as follows: 

*One of the follies -which prevailed to a greater or less degree in connection 
with the shooting of the President, was the attempt to draw a parallel between that 
event and the recent killing of tlie Czar Alexander. There was na parallel at all. 
The Czar died in the cause of despotism; Garfield, in the cause of liberty. The 
one was killed by his own people, whose rights he and his House had tram])ied in 
the dust; tlie other was shot down by a villainous fool who .sprang out like a 
coiled rattlesnake upon the innocent and beloved ruler of a free peoi)1e, wlio wouhl 
have died by thousands to save his life. I^et tis hear no more of the likeness be- 
tween the deatlis of (iarfield and Alexander II. 



640 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

"The President has passed a tranquil night, and this morning expresses 
himself as feeling quite comfortable. We regard the general progress of 
the case as very satisfactory. Pulse, this morning, 100; temperature, 
99.4; respiration, 23." 

Whatever might be the progress of the President's wound to- 
wards recovery, there could be no doubt that the vigor of his 
mental faculties was nearly up to the standard of health. At 
times, indeed, there seemed to be an unusual, and, perhaps, un- 
natural, exhilaration of his faculties. He heard every thing, and 
was eager to talk and to read the papers. Of course, all exciting 
causes Avere excluded by the physicians, but the President was 
restless under the restraint. Sometimes he wished to debate ques- 
tions with his attendants, and, anon, when that was forbidden, he 
would 'indulge in some pleasantry, as was his custom in health. 
The surgeons noticed that he managed to convey a great deal in 
a few words. Sometimes he comprised sentences into a single 
expression. W^hen some one told him that the heart of the peo- 
ple was in bed wnth him, he replied : " Sore heart." He did not 
complain, however; not a querulous word escaped his lips. AVhcn 
he was inclined to debate propositions, and reasons were given 
him why a thing should be thus, he was very ready to point out 
any weakness in the reasoning. In a word, the President was 
himself, and retained possession of all his mental faculties. 

The afternoon and evening bulletins were issued at the usual 
hours. They said : 

" 1 p. M. — The condition of the President continues to be favorable. 
Pulse, 104; temperature, 101.2; respiration, 22, The next bulletin will 
be issued at 8 p. m." 

"8: 15 I*. M. — The President's condition has continued favorable diu-ing 
the day. The febrile reaction does not differ materially from that of yes- 
ter.lay. Pulse, 108; temperature, 101.9; respiration, 24." 

So, after a week of intense anxiety, the twilight of Saturday 
evening closed around the world, hiding in its folds alilco tlie 
hopes and the fears of the people. 

Tlic ninth day. — It was Sunday again. The Christian public 
had, from the first, taken up the President's cause with heartfelt 



SHOT DOWN.— THE UNIVERSAL PRAYEE. 541 

anxiety. Scarcely a pulpit or pew in the land had failed to re- 
spond in yearning and prayer for his recovery. This anxiety had 
been confined to no sect or creed or party. From Romanist to 
Free-Churchman it was all one voice of sympathy and entreaty 
to heaven for the President's life. In greater or less degree, miP- 
ions of men found in themselves a change of feeling, and a growth 
of appreciation, of thorough trust and of high regard, as they 
looked anxiously to the bedside of the President. His calm res- 
ignation and readiness to meet death, with his cool courage and 
unwavering resolution to do his best to preserve a life useful and 
precious to millions; his patient endurance of pain, and of all 
the restraints deemed essential to his recovery ; his tenderness ol 
feeling and his royal strength of will, made him loved with an 
unspeakable love by millions of true-hearted men and women 
throughout the land. It was not too much to say that the week 
which had elapsed had lifted the National standard of true Chris- 
tian manhood for all time to come. The whole nation was edu- 
cated by the affliction of one. The people will^ perhaps, never 
realize how much they learned by the bedside of the wounded 
President. In knowledge of merely material things the whole 
Nation grew wiser. It had been studying physical injuries, their 
nature and treatment, with such intense interest, that there were 
thousands of school-boys who knew more of such subjects than 
their fathers did when the crime was committed. This, however, 
was an insignificant part of the knowledge gained. Moral cult- 
ure was advanced; how much, the people could but surmise. 
There were millions of men and women who realized, as they had 
never done before, the value of calm fortitude, resolute will, and 
strict obedience in time of trial. 

The first bulletin of Sunday morning was as follows: 

"The President has passed the most comfortable night he has experi- 
enced since he was wounded, sleeping tranquilly, and with few breaks. 
The general progre.*s of his symptoms continues to be favorable. Pulse, 
106; temperature, 100; respiration, 23." 

■ The church .services of the day were ahno.st exclusively devoled 
to sermons on the lessons derived and derival)le from the Nation'.i 



o42 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAKFIELD. 

sorrow, and to prayers for the restoration of the beloved Chief 
^lagistrate. Lessons not a few were drawn from the great national 
catastrophe, and more particularly from the example which the 
afflicted chieftain had set to all the people — an example so full of 
patience and courage as to be cited in praise and panegyric for all 
time to come. For more than a week it had been as if the Nation 
M-ere sitting at the bedside of a man in sore distress, counting his 
'pulses, noting his temperature and breathing, and listening for 
every whispered word. But neither the imminent presence of 
death nor the agony of long-continued suifering had drawn from 
the President a single word of anger or vindictiveness toward 
any one. Such a lesson was not to be lost on the American peo- 
ple, and it was clearly foreseen that if his life should be spared, 
he Avould rise to an influence over the public mind and destiny 
not equaled in the case of any man since the days of Lincoln. In 
the early afternoon, and again in tlie evening, the usual bulletins 
came with brief but encouraging words from the surgeons : 

" 1 p. M. — The President's symptoms continue to be favorable. Pulse, 
102; temperature, 100.5; respiration, 22. 7 P. M. — The President's 
symptoms continue to make favorable progress. Pulse, 108; tempera- 
ture, 101.9; respiration, 24." 

Unofficial information from the President's bedside was, how- 
ever, less favorable than the official reports. Many candid and 
cautious observers about the sick-room were more apprehensive 
than the physicians seemed to be, that the President was not so 
clearly on the road to recovery as could have been hoped. Among 
the latter was Professor B. A. Hinsdale, of Hiram College, Avho 
sent to Cleveland during the day a dispatch for publication among 
the old friends of the Garfield family, in which he said : 

"The President is by no means out of danger, and I do not think it 
wise for people to settle down in a belief that he is. Of course we have 
a strong reason to hope that he will recover, but people ought to remem- 
ber that the road to recovery will be a long one, beset with many 
daurrers." 



SHOT DOWN.— THE OPPRESSIVE HEAT. 543 

One of the peculiarities of the President's case was the invariable 
cheerfulness of the patient. He seemed to regard it as a part of 
his duty to keep those about him in good spirits, and to aid the 
physicians in the Avork of bringing him through. He frequently 
asked to see the bulletins, and sometimes made humorous remarks 
about their contents. His food was many times a subject of some 
jest, and when it did not suit him, he had his revenge by perpe- 
trating some pleasant satire about the offending article, or the 
cooks who had prepared it. On one occasion, the President asked 
for a drink, whereupon Major Swaim handed him some milk, to 
which the physicians had added a small quantity of old rum. The 
President, after drinking it, looked at Major Swaim with a dis- 
satisfied expression, and said: "Swaim, that's a rum dose, isn't 
it?" On other occasions the sufferer spoke gravely, but always 
hopefully, of his conditions and prospects, expressing the most 
earnest hopes for speedy and perfect recovery. 

The tenth day. — The weather was still oppressive, and the Pres- 
ident Avas distressed with the heat. The artificial contrivances 
hitherto employed to reduce the temperature of his room, and to 
maintain the same at a given degree, had been but partly success- 
ful. An effort was now made on a more elaborate scale to over- 
come the heat by artificial means, and thus to furnish the President 
as much comfort as a moderate and equable temperature could 
afford. Monday, the eleventh of July, was mostly devoted to this 
work. Several fire-engines and large cast-iron boilers were put in 
position near the east basement door of the White House, and car- 
penters and machinists were set to Avork putting up apparatus of 
enormous proportions, connected Avith the A^entilating machinery. 
Locomotive head-lights to illuminate the scene Avcre supplied, so 
that there should be no interruption until the Avork Avas done. The 
basis of the refrigerating apparatus Avas the Jennings machine, 
heretofore referred to ; but Professor NcAvcomb and Major PoAvell 
jointly assisted in perfecting some additional appliances for drying 
and purifying the air to be admitted to the sick chamber. Several 
other devices of an entirely different character were brought to the 
attention of the physicians in attendance, and experimental ma- 



544 



LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 



chinery was set up to exhibit some of them, but they were mostly 

unsuccessful. The President was not aware of the efforts of their 

inventors to benefit him. 

But by means of the Jennings machine an even temperature 

of 77° Fahrenheit was preserved in the sick room, and the capacity 

of the machinery was found 
to be sufficient to reduce the 
temperature several degrees 
lower, if it should be thought 
necessary to do so. The win- 
dows of the President's room 
remained open, so that the 
air which was forced into his 
chamber found ready exit, 
thus insuring perfect venti- 
lation. 

The bulletin issued by the 
surgeons on Monday morn- 
ing was more encouraging. 
The report said: 

"July 11-8 A. M.— The Pres- 
DR. D. w. BUSS. ^"^^^^^ passed a comfortable night, 

and his condition shows an ini- 
proveraent over that of yesterday. Pulse, 98;, terajierature, 99.2; res- 
piration, 22." 

The President continued talkative. Only the positive injunc- 
tion of the physicians could keep him from speaking out on all 
subjects that came into his mind. During the day he indulged in 
his accustomed pun. To one of his attendants he said, jocosely : 
"I wish I could get up on my feet; I would like to see whether I 
have any backbone left or not!" The sly backward look at the re- 
cent political struggle in which his administration had been engaged, 
involving the question of the presidential backbone, was not bad 
' for a sick man battling for his life. 

Justly or unjustly, the regular bulletins came to be somewhat 




SHOT DOWN.— THE TENTH DAY. 545 

distrusted by the people. The feeling began to spread that, al- 
though the naked tacts of temperature, pulse, and respiration re- 
ported in the bulletins were not to be questioned as to their accu- 
rac_v, yet the comments and construction put by the attending sur- 
geons upon the facts, were too rose-colored to meet the conditions 
of exact truth. At the same time this opinion gained ground 
with the public, a feeling of quite implicit confidence sprang up 
respecting the official reports of the President's condition sent 
abroad, more especially in reference to those sent to Lowell, Min- 
ister at St. James, by Secretary Blaine. These messages from 
the principal member of the President's cabinet came, by and by, 
to be looked for with fully as much confidence as to their accu- 
racy as did the surgeons' official bulletins. On the 11th of July, 
Secretary Blaine sent out one of these messages which gave great 
comfort, as follows: 

"Lowell, Mhiister, LomJon: 

"At the beginning of the tenth day since he was wounded, the symp- 
toms of the President are all hopeful and favorable. Suppuration goes 
on with no higher pulse or temperature than should be expected. His 
milk diet, of a pint and a half per day, h relished and digested. His 
physical strength keeps up wonderfully, and his mind is entirely clear 
and active, without showing excitement. His physicians do not count him " 
beyond dungei*, but the general confidence in his recovery is strength- 
ened every hour. "Blaine, Secretary." 

Later in the day, however, the condition of the President was 
less fiivorable than that presented in Mr. Blaine's dispatch, and the 
evening bulletin was constrained to admit a higher fever than at 
any time previously. The afternoon and evening official reports 
were as follows: 

" 1 p. M. — The fivorable progress of the President continues. Pulse, 
105; temperature, 99.8; respiration, 24. 7 p.m. — The President has 
had rather more fever this afternoon. In other respects, his condition is 
unchanged. Pulse, 108; temperature, 102.8; respiration, 24." 

The eleventh day. — As the President's case progressed, llie pub- 
35 



546 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

lie became divided in their views of the prospect of recovery. Physi- 
cians themselves disagreed as to both the diagnosis and the treat- 
ment of the President's injury. The distinguished Dr. Hammond, 
of New York, did not hesitate openly to condemn the course pur- 
sued by the attending surgeons. Other noted physicians, not a 
few, held similar opinions; and a series of able and exhaustive ar- 
ticles aj)peared in the Xew York Herald, criticising with severity 
the methods and views of those who were immediately responsible 
for the management of the case. The attending surgeons were 
considerably annoyed by these strictures, and many sharp replies 
were returned to those physicians wdio, without having personally 
examined the President's wound, ventured to express definite opin- 
ions on questions w^hich those for more than a week in immediate 
attendance upon the patient, had been unable to decide. The news- 
papers also divided, one part of them publishing all the favorable, 
and the other all the unfavorable news from the sick cliamber of 
the White House. The former felt called upon to explain away 
every unfavorable symptom which appeared; and the latter, to be- 
cloud all the favorable news with doubt. This diversion in public 
opinion continued manifest during the remainder of the President's 
illness. 

• The first news for Tuesday, the 12th of July, came in the bulle- 
tins of the surgeons, and was as follows : 

"8 A. M. — The President is comfortable this morning. Pulse, 96; tem- 
perature, 99.6; respiration, 22." 

In addition to these regular reports of the attending physicians, 
much unofficial information of the President's condition was con- 
stantly given to the public through the daily press. Nearly all of 
the leading newspapers had regular correspondents at the Capital, 
and the reports which they sent each day were quite extended and 
generally full of interest. These unofficial communications were, 
in large part, made up of conversations which the reporters held 
from time to time with the surgeons and nurses of the President; 
and, although in many cases the news sent out from these sources 



SHOT DOWN.— THE ELEVENTH DAY. 



547 



was conflicting and contradictory, yet the public was greatly in- 
debted to the industry and skill with which each morning's accounts 
were prepared. During the 12th of July, Dr. F. H. Hamilton, 
one of the consulting surgeons, was asked by a reporter of the 
]S'ew York Tribune to give his opinion of the President's condi- 
tion. He replied that nothing had occurred within the ])rcceding 
twenty -four hours to cause the alarm that some professed to feci. 
The rise in temperature and 
increase in pulse had oc- 
curred for several evenings, 
and both were natural at 
that time of day, even in a 
well person. He added, 
however, that the Presi- 
dent's condition would be 
more favorable, if these 
symptoms were absent al- 
together. There A\'as noth- 
ing discouraging in the offi- 
cial bulletins, which he 
thought were scrupulously 
correct, as in the private 
intelligence sent him by the 
iittending surgeons. He re- 
peated the assertion that he 
had made from the begin- 
ning, that every hour that elapsed without more dangerous symp- 
toms, increased the patient's chances of recovery. 

The bulletins of the afternoon and evening M'ere couched in the 
usual language ; but it was evident, on critical examination of the 
figures, that the construction put by the surgeons upon them, was 
hardly justified by the facts. The reports said: 




SUEGEOX-GENERAL J. K. BARN! 



''1 P. u. — The President is passing a comfortable day. Pulse, 100; 
temperature, 100.8; respiration, 24. 7 P. M.— Pulse, 104; temperature, 
102.4; respiration, 24." 



548 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

TJw (ircl/fh (lay. — During the second week of tlie President's 
prostration the public mind settled down to the expectation 
of a long, tedious illness. The suspense of the first few days 
had ])assed — as such things always pass — and people came to 
understand that they must wait until the silent forces of nat- 
ure should restore, if they ever could restore, the wounded 
Chief Magistrate to health. The Wednesday morning bulletin 
was of the most cheering kind — more so, for once, than was 
expressed in the words of the surgeons : 

"8: 30 A. M. — The President is doing well this morning. Pulse, 90 ; tem- 
perature, 98.5; respiration, 20. His gradual progiess toward recovery is 
manifest, and thus far without serious complication." 

The temperature of the President's room had now been 
completely mastered by artificial means. The degree finally 
decided on as most favorable to tlie patient was 81° Fahreidieit. 
About 10,000 cubic feet of fresh air was forced into the room 
each hour, and this great volume making its escape through 
the open windows carried away all odore and impurities. 
The President's wound was now in full process of suppuration. 
Tills became a heavy drain upon his constitutional and re- 
served forces, and his strength was rapidly depleted. He grew 
worse — unable to move his body or even his limbs without 
gi'eat exertion. At intervals, moreover, the stomach refused 
to perform its functions, and there was, in conseqnence, instant 
anxiety on the question of keeping life in the President until 
lie coiikl get well, Tlie fluid food, opon which only, he was 
nourished, neither satisfied the longings of nature nor fur- 
nished sufficient aliment to sustain the flagging powers of life. 
Moreover, at this epoch began the great blunder in the President's 
tr,eatment. Owing to the mistaken diagnosis of the surgeons the 
course of the ball had been altogether misjndged. According 
to -the theory of the physicians the ball had gone forward 
and downward. As soon as the wound began to suppu rater 
it was found desirable to insert therein a drainage tube to the 
end that the discharge might be perfectly free. This tube — 



SHOT DOWN.— THE MISTAKEN DIAGNOSIS. 



549 



though pliable — was, in the process of insertion, constantly so 
manipulated by the surgeons as to carry it forward and down- 
ward in the supposed track of the ball, rather than horizon- 
tally to the left, in the real course of the balh It thns came 
to pass that the natural tendency of che pus, making its way 
to the external opening 
of the wound to sink into 
the tissues before reaching 
the wound, was augment- 
ed by the erroneous theory 
and manipulation of the 
surgeons. Having once 
started an opening down- 
ward through the tissues, 
this was immediately 
filled with pus, and into 
this pseudo wound, at 
each insertion in the path 
of the burrowing pns, the 
p h y s i c i a n 's tube was 
thrust further and fur- 
ther. This mistake — al- 
beit unforeseen and pos- 
sibly undiscoverable — was 
the rock on which all 

hope of recovery was ultimately shivered. The noonday and 
evening bulletins came at the appointed hours and were as 
follows : 

" 1 p. M. — The President's condition continues favorable. Pulse, 94; 
temperature, 100.6; respiration, 22. 7 p. m. — The President has liad 
less fever this afternoon than either yesterday or the day before. He 
continues slowly to improve. Pulse, 100; temperature, 101.6; respira- 
tion, 24." 




DR. J. J. WOODWARD. 



The large and not very reputable army of busybodies now 
made a great discovery. It was the great question of the 



ti~)0 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

President's '•'disaljUity '' to bo President any longer. Certainly 
lie was wounded, stricken down, lying at d.eath's door. He 
was disabled; there was no doubt of tliat. The Constitution 
indicates disability of the President as one of the contingen- 
cies under which the Vice-President shall discharge the duties 
of the presidency. But was President Garfield disabled in the 
sense contemplated by tlie framers of the Constitution? Does 
that kind of prostration of the bodily powers, in which there 
is still a prospect of recovery, which leaves the will free to 
act, and the mental powers unimpaired, really involve disability? 
These were the questions which now came up for public dis- 
cussion. However they might or should be decided as abstract 
q,uestion3 of constitutional construction, certain it is that, as a 
practical issue, there was quite a universal judgment that, as 
yet. President Garfield was not "disabled" in the sense of the 
Constitution. Such was the temper of the people, moreover, 
that they would not have patiently brooked any real effort to 
make the Vice-President acting Chief Magistrate of the I^ation. 
The thirteenth day. — Thursday, July 14th, was a quiet day at 
the White House, and a like quiet was gradually diffused 
through the country. The President was reported as having 
gained a little strength — a very desirable thing. The unoffi- 
cial accounts from the sick chamber were more than usually 
encouraging. The reports of the President's condition occu- 
pied a less conspicuous place in the papers of the day, and 
;there was less popular discussion. The morning bulletin said; 

"8:r>0 A. Ji. — The President has passed a comfortable nipht and con- 
tinues to do well. Pulse, 90; temperature, 99.8; respiration, 22." 

Hardly second in Interest to the regular bulletins were the 
dispatches constantly arriving from foreign powers, expressing 
cither some hope of recovery or asking for the latest news. 
On tiiis day, the Secretary of State received the following tele- 
gram from Mr. Lowell : 

''Blaine, Secretary, Washington: 

"I have received the following from the Queen: 'I "wish to express 



SHOT DOWN.— SYMPATHY ABROAD. 



551 



mv "Teat satisf^iction nt tlio very favorable accounts of the President, 
and hiipe that lie will soon he ctmsidered out of danger.' 

" Lo\vi:ll, Minister, London." 

The Japnnope Minister also handed to the Secretary of 
State a telegraphic communication which he received Irom his 
Government, of which the following is a copy: 

" YosiiiDA, Japanese MiviMpt. Washingfon : 

" His Miijesty was greatly rejoiced to receive your dispatch announc- 
ing the steady recovery of the President, and commands you to present 
his hearty congratulations. 

" MooYENO, Acting MIni.--ter Foreign Affairs, Tokio." 

During the day Senator 
Conkling, of whose atti- 
tude towards tlie Admin- 
istration so much had been 
recently said, again visited 
Washington. In the even- 
ing he called at the Ex- 
ecutive Mansion and hand- 
ed the usher his card for 
Mrs. Garfield. He said he 
did not wish to disturb her, 
but desired that his sym- 
pathies might be made 
known to her, as well as 
his gratification that the 
President was recovering 
from his wounds. 

The afternoon and even 
ing bulletins were duly 

issued, and gave the following account of the President's 
progress : 

"1 p. M.— The progress of the President's condition continues to be 
satisfactory this morning. Pulse, 94; temperature, 98.5; respiration, 22. 




"gk^^ 



TK. ROBERT REYBCRN. 



552 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

7. P. M. — The febrile rise this afternoon has been less pronounced, and 
has not caused the President so much discomfort. His general condi- 
tion is good. Pulse, 98; temjierature, 101; respiration, 23." 

The interpretation pnt by the snrgeons upon these reports,' 
and generally — though not universally — accepted by medical 
men, was that the so-called " surgical fever," that is, a certain 
exacerbation of bodily temperature always noticeable in per- 
sons recovering from physical injury, had passed its crisis and 
would soon disappear. This belief was strengthened during 
the day by the presence of perspiration and other concomitants 
of a waning fever. 

For the first time in five days the patient's temperature fell 
to the normal degree (98.6°). A new drainage pipe of rubber 
was inserted into the wound to a greater depth than the orig- 
inal pipe had reached.* The President was able to move 
his limbs mere easily than heretofore, and in other ways mani- 
fested his improvement. He asked more frequently about 
public aftairs, and his curiosity was gratified in matters which 
would not produce excitement. 

Thus (lay by day the battle went on between the recuper- 
ative forces of nature and the destructive agency of a dreadful 
wound. 

Tlie fourteenth day. — The improvement in the President's condi- 
tion, first distinctly manifested about the beginning of this week, 
was now more marked than hitherto. The .patient took food with 
relish. The wound showed signs of healing. The febrile symp- 
toms during most of the day were wholly wanting. Taken all in 
all there was a distinct progress toward recovery. The morning 
bulletin said: 

"8:30 a. m. — The President has rested well during the night, is doing 
admira])ly tliis morning, and takes his food with relish. Pulse, 90; tem- 
perature, 98.5; respiration, 18." 

*Here again was the fatal mistake. Day after day the burrowing pus was aided 
on Its way downward among the tissues by the disturbing drainage tubes of the 
burgeons. 



SHOT DOWN.— FAVOKABLE REPOETS. 553 

Tho physicians, on tlic strength of these indications, declared in 
unofliciai conversation that the progress of their distinguished 
patient toward recovery could not be more satisfactory. So both 
surgeons and people fell to the discussion of minor topics instead 
of the great question of life or death. One question about which 
all were sjiecially curious was the location of the ball in the Presi- 
dent's body. Several electricians thought to determine this matter 
by a new application of scientific priuciples. It was suggested that 
the deflection of an electric needle, when brought near to the ball, 
could be used as an index of the exact spot where the missile was 
hidden. Professoiv.T>clI, of ^^^^^^, was specially confident of 
success by this method. He was firm in the belief that, by the ap- 
plication of Hughes's induction balance to the surface of the Presi- 
dent's body, he would be able to mark definitely the spot where the 
ball lay imbedded. The attending surgeons gave their consent that 
cftlie attempt might be made, and it was agreed that as soon as 
Professor Bell had completed some modifications in the instrument, 
and some experimental tests for the discovery of leaden balls under 
similar conditions, the trial should be made. 

The afternoon and evening bulletins of the fourteenth day were 
of the most encouraging purport: 

"1 p. M. — The President continues to do very well this morning. 
Pube, 94; temperature, 98.5; respiration, 18. 7 P. M. — The President 
has continued to do well during the day. The afternoon fever has been 
sligliter than on any day since the 3d. Pulse, 98; temperature, 100.4; 
respiration. 20." 

There was, at this epoch in the history of President Garfield's 
case, a good deal of monotony. The regular reports were in a 
measure duplicates of each other, and the unofficial accounts which 
were sent out by the newspaper correspondents were not charac- 
terized by the sensational quality which marked the early reports 
of the tragedy. The people, moreover — and with good reason — 
grew somewhat suspicious of startling dispatches, for it was found 
that the stock jobbers of New York City were not unwilling to use 
the President's condition as a basis of speculation. With sorrow 



o54 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

and mortification it M'as discovered that there were men so lost to 
the sense of shame as to wager fictitious shares against the hopes 
of the Nation and to speculate on a manufactured death-rattle in 
the throat of the Republic! 

The fifteenth day. — From the beginning of the healing of the 
Presideiit's wound, the surgeons had been more or less apprehen- 
sive that the blood of their patient would be poisoned by the ab- 
sor])tion of purulent matter, and his life be thereby imperiled. 
There are two secondary diseases thus likely to arise from the 
presence of a wound in the body — pyoemia and septicsemia. The 
first of these is by far the most to be dreaded. The malady re- 
sults from the absorption of the poisonous pus corpuscles into the 
circulation wfth the consequent horrors of rigors and burning 
fever. The latter disease, septicisraia, is a less fearful complication, 
resulting from the absorption of the fluid ichor peculiar to healing 
wounds and the infection of the blood thereby. Both of these ills 
were to be feared in the case of the President. Day by day went 
by, however, and the dreaded symptoms did not appear. The bul- 
letins of the 16th of July were of a sort to indicate that blood poi- 
soning was hardly to be apprehended. The reports said : 

"8:30 A. M. — The President has passed another good night, and is 
steadily progressing toward convalescence. Pulse, 90; temperature, 
98.-5; respiration, 18. 7 P. i\T. — The President has passed a better day 
than niiy since lie was hurt. The afternoon fever is still less tlian yester- 
day. His pulse is now 98; temperature, 100.2; respiration, 19." 

In view of the favorable progress of the President's case the sur- 
geons decided, for the time, to issue bulletins only in the morning 
and evening, thus dispensing with the noonday report. 

One of the most interesting episodes in connection with the as- 
sassination of the President was the raising of a fund for the sup- 
port of his family. The enterprise was proposed by Cyrus W. 
Fichl of New York, who headed the subscription with $25,000. 
The fund, was for j\Irs. Garfield, and was to be hers absolutely in- 
dcpendeut of any contingencies. It was proj)osed that any and all 
wlio felt disposed should add to the sum until the amount contem- 



SHOT DOWN.— THE MRS. GARFIELD FUND. 555 

plated was secured. Then it was designed to invest the whole iu 
Mrs. Garfield's name, the interest to go to her and her family iu 
perpetuity. Nothwithstauding the strong hopes which were enter- 
tained of the President's recovery, the subscription was rapidly 
augmented until, before the President's death, the sum had reached 
more than §300,000. After the tragedy was ended the trustees 
having the fund iu charge invested §275,000 of the amount in four 
per cent. Government bonds, placing the whole to Mrs. Garfield's 
credit. It was thus that the American people, of their own accord, 
made provision for the wife and children of the great citizen who 
had never found time to get riches. 

The sixteenth claij. — The news on this day opened wnth the 
cheering information that the President was now permitted to 
order his own meals, and that he was making good use of the 
privilege. The day at Washington was one of the least ex- 
citing in the whole course of the President's illness. The fu- 
ture was freely discussed — how soon the wounded Chief Mag- 
istrate might go abroad and what measures should be adopted 
for his more rapid restoration to health. The morning and 
evening bulletins were almost a mere matter of form: 

"8:3) A. M. — The President continues to improve. He passed an ex- 
cellent night and has a good appetite. This morning, pulse, 90 ; tem- 
pernture, 98.4; respiration, 18. 7 p. m. — Our expectations of favorable 
progress have been fully realized by the manner in wliich the President 
has jiassed the day. He has taken more solid food and with greater rel- 
ish than hitherto, and his afternoon fever, which is as slight as that of 
yesterday, came on later. His j)ulae is 98; temperature, 100.2; respira- 
tion, 20."" 

The informal reports of the day showed, from the conversa- 
tions of the surgeons, that they w^ere still in some measure 
under the delusion that the ball had passed through the Presi- 
dent's body and was imbedded in the anterior wall, in a posi- 
tion of easy removal in the future. 

The fievniteenth day. — This was similar to the day before. 
Notwithstanding the febrile rise of the preceding evening, the 



556 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

President was reported as having passed a restfnl night. In the 
morning he had a friendly altercation with the doctors, he con- 
tending that he might smoke a cigar and they refusing. He was 
cheerful, confident, and strong in the faith that he was on the way 
leading to recovery. The symptoms had a reassuring complexion 
in the general view and to the immediate attendants. The Presi- 
dent felt that he was better, and he said so. There was no ques- 
tion about his fever ; that showed for itself; but it did not lead to 
serious apprehension. Improvement in his condition was what 
the people wanted to hear about, and they did not expect any 
thing else. The great majority had determined upon not hearing 
any thing contrary to their hopes, and this feeling was participated 
in by the public press. Under these conditions it is not surpris- 
ing that the physicians, who knew just how the popular heart was 
throbbing, made extraordinary effort to respond to its require- 
ments. No one accuses them of deception. No one believes they 
were actuated by any but the best motives in their examinations 
and reports. Admitting that a portion of their theory was Avrong, 
who will contend that a better theory could have resulted from the 
examination of any equivalent number of physicians and surgeons? 
This question has been widely discussed, without finding a conclu- 
sion in anywise discreditable to the corps of eminent scientists who 
ministered to the sufferings of President Garfield. 

The physicians explained to the public that the present feverish- 
ncss of the patient had arisen from his recent over-eating of solid 
food. The more thoughtful, however, who had carefully scanned 
the reports for the last few days, were not satisfied, and awaited 
the morning bulletin with a little fear. The report ran thus: 

"8:30 A. iM. — The President has passed anotlier comfortable night and 
is doing well this morning; pulse, 88; temperature, 98.4; respiration, 18." 

This was reassuring; so the people took up the subject of the 
thanksgiving which had been proposed by Governor Charles 
Foster, of Ohio. During the day a letter was published 
from Hon. O. M. Roberts, Governor of Texas, giving his 
hearty approval of what Governor Foster had proposed. An 



SHOT DOWN.— SUPPOSED CONVALESCENCE. 5o7 

interesting conversation Avith Dv. Bliss was also reported for 
the Eastern press, in the course of wliich lie declareM! tliat 
the President's wound was in the healing stage, an<l tliat the 
track of the ball was slowly but surely clearing by the processes 
of nature. The evening bulletin, however, was not as fair as 
had been hoped. It said : 

" 7 r. M. — The President has had a little more fever this afternoon, 
Avhieli is regarded as merely a temporary fluctuation. At 1 P. M. his 
jDulse was i)8; temperature, 98.5; respiration, 18. At present his pulse 
is 102; temperature, 100.7; respiration, 21." 

7'/(C firjhlccntk dcnj. — Something has already been said of the 
Ilnghcs Induction balance with which Professor Bell was to 
discover the position of the ball in the President's body. The 
preliminary experiments liad been continued, and the electri- 
cians had strong hopes of success, but the test had not yet been 
made.. The press reports of the day were largely devoted to 
descriptions of the delicate apparatus which was to enable the 
scientists to determine the exact location of the ball. The 
great difliculty in the way was the non-susceptibility of lead 
to the inductive ellect of electricity. Professor Bell and his 
co-electricians were, however, quite confident that this obstacle 
could be overcome and the position of the ball determined. The 
two bulletins of July 19tli were as follows: 

"8:30 A. M. — The President has passed a very good night, and this 
morning he is free from fever, and expresses himself as feeling quite 
comfortable. Pulse, 90; temperature, 98.5; respiration, 18. 7 P. M. — 
The President has passed an excellent day, and the afternoon fever has 
been less than on any day since he Avas wounded. At 1 p. M. his pulse 
was 92 ; temperature, 98.5 ; respiration, 19. At present his pulse io 96 j 
temperature, 99.8 ; respiration, 19." 

The nineteenth day. — The reports, both official and unofficuu, 
were of a sort to justify a belief in the early convales'^-encc of 
the President — if indeed convalescence had not already super- 
vened. The fever was so slight as to be scarcely Jiny longer 



558 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

noticeable. The President's appetite and spirits were of a sort 
to suggest immediate recovery. It was said by the attending 
surgeons on the 20tii of July, that the Avounded man had 
passed liis best day since his injury was received. He was still 
represented as weak and weary from lying so long in bed. He 
was looking forward eagerly to the time when he could take 
the trip upon the Potomac, and possibly a sea voyage, which 
had been promised him by the middle of August, if he should 
continue to improve. Arrangements Avere already made so 
that the trip might be as safe and comfortable as possible. 

The Tallapoosa, a United States steamer, underwent repairs 
and was made ready for service. The Secretary of the Navy 
issued orders to put additional men at work upon her, so that 
she might be ready to sail at any time after the 15th of August. 

The bulletins of the surgeons were issued as usual, morning 
and evening. They said: 

"8:30 A. M. — The progress of the President toward recovery contin- 
ues uninterruptedly. He has passed another quiet night. Pult-e this 
morning 86; temperature, 98.4; respiration, 18. 7 p. m. — The Presi- 
dent has passed an excellent day. At 1 r. M. his pulse was 88 ; tem- 
perature, 98.4; respiration, 18. At the present time his pulse is 98; 
temperature, 99.6 ; respiration, 19." 

The twentieth clay. — The physicians were unwilling to say that 
their patient was out of danger, but they permitted the attcuid- 
ants to think so, and the people accepted it as true. At the 
morning dressing of the wound a discovery was made. It was 
found that some of the clothing had entered the wound with 
the bullet. There came away, spontaneously with the pus, from 
the deeper part of the wound, Avhat the surgeons called a 
"morsel of clothing," about one-quarter of an inch square. Upon 
being examined under the microscope by Dr. Woodward, it was 
found to consist chiefly of cotton fibers, with a few Avoolen 
fibers adhering. It was a portion of the President's shirt, with 
a few fibers of wool from the coat. 

Tlie two bulletins of the day were brief but satisfactory: 



SHOT DOWN.— BAD NEWS. 559 

" 8 : oO A. M. — The President has had a good night and is doing excel- 
lently. This morning, pulse, 88; temperature, 98.4; respiration, 18. 
7 p. M. — The President has had another good day. At 1 p. M. his pulse 
was 92; temperature, 98.4; respiration, 19. At 7 p. 3I., pulse, 96; tem- 
perature, 99.9; respiration, 19." 

For some time past the consulting surgeons had not been 
called to the President's bedside, but daily reports vvere made 
to them by the phj-sicians in charge. These reports, however, 
were but a more extended statement of the facts contained in 
the official bulletins, and generally added nothing in the way of 
information. 

The twenty -first day. — The recovery of the President was now 
generally believed to be assured. The surgeons gave it as their 
opinion that about the only danger to be apprehended was the 
prolonged suppuration of the wound. Under the influence of 
this drain the President was wasting from day to day, and the 
amount of food which he was able to take was hardly suffi- 
cient to supply the waste. Nevertheless he held up well under 
this exhaustive i)rocess, and although greatly reduced in llesh 
and strength, his vital energies did not as yet seem to be seri- 
ously impaired. Almost the only item of news which came 
from the White House was the somewhat monotonous bulle- 
tins, which said : 

" 8:30 A. M. — The President rested well during the night and is quite 
easy this morning. Pulse, 88; temperature, 98.4; respiration, 17. 
7:30 p. m. — The progress of the President's case continues without ma- 
terial change. At 1 p. m. his pulse was 98; temperature, 98.4; respi- 
ration, 18. At 7 p. M., pulse, 98 ; temj^erature, 100.2; respiration, 19." 

The twenty -second day. — Bad news! The President was worse. 
The morning bulletin did not appear. At first this fact crea- 
ted no anxiety, but soon there was alarm. At ten o'clock a 
bulletin Avas posted by the surgeons, which said: 

" 10 A. M. — The President was more restless last niglit; but this morn- 
ing at 7 A. M., while preparations were made to dress his wound, his 



560 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

temper:itui-e was found to be normal; pulse, 92; temperature, 98.4; 
resDiration, 19. At 7: 30 he hud a slight rigor, in consequence of which 
the dressing of his wound was postponed. Keaction followed i)romptly, 
and the dressing has just now been completed. At present his pulse is 
110 ; temperature, 101 ; respiration, 24." 

"Ivii^^or" was a bad word. Pliysiciaiis understood it to por- 
tend blood poisoning. It was remembered, moreover, hy the 
attendants that for the last two days the President had com- 
plained of a sense of great fatigue. The symptoms were well 
calcuhited to inspire a fear that the dread pyseraia had made 
its appearance. The consulting surgeons were immediately 
sent for. At half-past eleven the President had another chill, 
and the news given to the people in the afternoon j)apers was 
of a kind to create the most serious apprehensions. The even- 
ing bulletin was awaited with the utmost anxiety. In the 
towns and cities crowds tilled the streets as had happened three 
weeks before when tlie news came of the assassination. At 
seven o'clock the bulletin came as follows: 

" 7 p. M. — After the bulletin of 10 A. M. the President's fever contin- 
ued. At 11:30 A. M. he again had a slight rigor, and his temporature 
subsequently rose, until, at 12: 30 r. i\r. it was 104, with pulse 125, res- 
piration, 2o. Between this time and 1 p. M. perspiration made its ap- 
pearance, and the temperature began to fall gradually. It is now^ 101.7; 
pulse, 118; respiration, 25." 

Soon after this bulletin Avas made public, Drs. Agnew and 
Hamilton reached Washington, but it was thought not best to 
disturb the President further, and so no consultation was held 
until the morrow. 

The twe^dtj-third day. — This was an anxious day in Washington 
and throughout the country. With the coming of morning it was 
learned that during the night the President had liad another chill. 
It also transpired that at the evening dressing of the wound, the 
physicians discovered in the region below where the ball had en- 
tered, a pus sac, that is, an accumulation of purulent matter in a 
cavity inclosed ia the tissues of the back. At nine o'clock there 



SHOT DOWN.— A SURGICAL OPERATION. 



561 



W^ 



was ail examination by the attending and consulting .surgeons, 
an an operation was determined upon. An incision was accord- 
ingly made about two inches in length, an inch and a half in 
depth, reaching down 
to the l)ottom of the 
cavity or .':;ac. It was 
about three inches be- 
low the w^ound and 
farther back toward 
the s[>ine. A large 
drainage tube was in- 
serted, and in the <iftef- 










noon, ^^hen the wound 
was again dressed, it 
was found that the pr.r, 
was escaping from tlie 
tube and not from the 
old ^\ ound at all. 

In making th^s nrt:- 
fu'ial opening s om 5 
f a r t h or d i sco ve ri e -^ 
were made regard- 
ing the character of the wound. It was found tliat the 
eleventh rib had suffered a compound fracture, being 
broken in two places. The piece of bone thus displaced 
36 



SCENE IX THE SICK CHAMBER. 



562 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

was driven inwards from its natural position. This the sur- 
geons restored to its place, and it was decided that in a few 
days the old opening, where the ball had entered, should be al- 
lowed to heal, leaving only the orifice made by the surgeons. 
During the operation the President displayed his usual cour- 
age. He neither flinched nor moved, though nothing was 
given him in the nature of an anaesthetic. Probes were tlirust 
down through the old wound to the bottom of tlie pocket, and 
against these probes the surgeons cut their way to the lower 
end of the sac. The operation thus performed was in every 
way successful. The beneficial effects were immediately appar- 
ent in an improved condition of the sufferer. The bulletin is- 
sued by the surgeons in the evening was as follows : 

"7 p. M. — The President has been much relieved by the operation of 
this morning, and the pus has been discharging satisfactorily through the 
new opening. At noon to-da}' his pulse was 118; temjierature, 99.8; 
respiration, 24. At present his pulse is 104; temperature, 99.2; respi- 
ration, 23." 

The unofficial conversations of the surgeons with reporters and 
others was to the effect that, taken all in all, the prospects for the 
President's ultimate recovery were not lessened by the events of 
the last two days. 

The twenty-fourth day. — The ncAvs was somewhat reassuring. 
There had been no very marked change in the President's condi- 
tion, either for better or worse. But he had passed a compara- 
tively comfortable night, sleeping at intervals, and suffering no 
recurrence of the chill. The operation performed had entailed no 
serious consequence, and the outlook again began to be hopeful. 
The surgeon's bulletins were of a sort to cheer rather than dis- 
courage. They said : 

"8: 30 A. M. — The President has passed a more comfortable night, and 
has had no rigor since that reported in the bulletin of yesterday morning. 
He is doing well this morning. Pulse, 96; temperature, 98.4; respira- 
tion, 18. 7 p. M. — The President has done well during the day. His 
afternoon fever did not come on until after three o'clock. It is some- 



SHOT DOWN.— SENSATIONAL DISPATCHES. 563 

what higher than yesterday, but there has been no chill. At noon his 
pulse was 104; temperature, 98.4; respiration, 20. At 7 p. M. his pulse 
was 110; temperature, 101; respiration, 24." 

The attendants upon the President who were often at the bedside, 
and had every opportunity of judging of the general course of the 
case, and also the members of the Cabinet, reiterated in many in- 
formal conversations the views expressed officially by the surgeons 
in charge. None the less, to one who could read between the lines 
and could not be blown hot or cold with every rumor, it was 
clear, even from the surgeons' bulletins, that the recovery of the 
President was still problematical. 

The tu-enty-ffth day. — The reports for Tuesday, July 26th, showed 
that the President was gaining ground, and that he had in a good 
measure realized the relief hoped for from the operation of the 
previous Sunday. This belief was plainly present in the dispatch 
of the cool-headed Mr. Blaine. He said : 

"Lowell, Minister, London: 

"At 11 o'clock p. M. the President's physicians report temperature and 
respiration normal, and pulse, 96 — best report at same hour for five 
nights. The entire day has been most encouraging, and a feeling of con- 
fidence is rapidly returning. "Blaine, Secretary." 

This dispatch of the Secretary of State was, of course, based upon 
the official bulletins of the surgeons, who said in their reports for 
the day: 

" 8 : 30 A. M. — ^The President was somewhat restless during the night, 
and the fever which had subsided after the last bulletin rose again about 
midnight, and continued till three o'clock, after which it again subsided. 
He is now about as well as yesterday at the same hour. Pulse, 102 ; 
temperature, 98.4; respiration, 18. 7 p. m. — The President has done 
well during the day. At noon his pulse was 106; temperature, 98.4; 
respiration, 19. At 7 p. m. pulse, 104; temperature, 100.7; respiration, 
22." 

One of the distressing features of the times was the presence 
in Washington of great numbers of irresponsible ncAvspaper cor- 
respondents who shamed their profession by the publication of 



564 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

whatever came uppermost. The Capital appeared to be at the 
mercy of sensational rumor-mongers, and they made the most of 
their opportunity. According to them, the doctors had said that 
the President would not live an hour ; mortification had set in ; an 
important surgical operation had been necessary, and the result 
had been unsatisfactory ; the surgeons refused to give any infor- 
mation concerning it or the President's condition ; it had been de- 
cided by the surgeons that an attempt must at once be made to 
find and extract the bullet as a last desperate effort to save the 
President's life ; the flag on the building occupied by the Depart- 
ment of Justice was at half-mast, as a sign of the President's 
death, etc. 

The twenty-sixth day. — There could be no doubt that the reports 
of the 27th indicated a marked imj)rovement in the President's 
condition. He continued all day without fever. The bulletins 
were unequivocal : 

"8 A. M. — The President slept sweetly last night from about 8 p. m. 
to 5 A. M., with but a slight break of short duration at 11 P. M. There 
have been no rigors. He takes his nourishment well, and his general 
condition is improving. He expresses himself as feeling better and more 
rested. Pulse, 94; temperature, 98.4; respiration, 18. 12:30 p. m. — 
The President's wound was dressed just after the morning bulletin was 
issued. Since then he has rested quietly, and takes his nourishment 
readily and without gastric disturbance. At present his pulse is 90 ; 
temperature, 98.4; respiration, 18. 7 P. M. — The President is still rest- 
ing quietly. He has been able to take more nourishment to-day than 
for several days past, and, up to the present hour, has had no febrile rise 
of temjierature. His wound has just been dressed. It looks well, and 
has continued to discharge healthy pus in sufficient quantity during the 
day. His pulse is now 95; terajxirature, 98.5; respiration, 20." 

The news sent abroad by Secretary Blaine to Minister Lowell 
was of the same tenor. The dispatch said : 

" Lowell, Minister, London. 

"At 11 o'clock p. M. the President's physicians gave a most favorable 
account of his condition. There is a conspicuous improvement in his 



SHOT DOWN.— CHANGE OF ROOMS. 566 

digestion and in the restfulness of his sleep. "We are by no means re- 
lieved from anxiety, but are growing more hopeful. 

"Blaine, Secretary." 

In a conversation during the day, Dr. Bliss, referring to the out- 
look, said: "There is only one more danger to be apprehended in 
the President's ease. That danger is pyaemia, and it is not likely 
to occur for a long time ; and we are extremely confident, almost 
certain, that it will not occur at all. The President is doing very, 
very well. We could not hope to have him do better. His sleep 
last night was the best that he has had since he was wounded." 

The twenty-sevenih day. — The incident of the day was the re- 
moval of the President from his room, in order that the apart- 
ment might be thoroughly cleaned and aired. The removal was 
effected without difficulty, and the President remained in the 
adjacent room until five o'clock in the afternoon, when he Avas 
quietly returned to his own chamber. He greatly enjoyed the 
slight cliange of scene thus afforded, and was much pleased with 
the maneuver by which his room had been brought to order. His 
spirits were revived not a little, and an improvement in his appe- 
tite was again thankfully noted. The official bulletins of the day 
were as follows: 

" 8 A. M. —The President rested well during the night, and no rigor 
or febrile disturbance has occurred since the bulletin of yesterday even- 
ing. Tliis morning the improvement of his general condition is distinctly 
perceptible. He appears refreshed by his night's rest, and expresses him- 
self cheerfully as to his condition. Pulse, 92; temperature, 98.4: respi- 
ration, 18. 12: 20 p. M. — The President bore the dressing of his wound 
this morning with less fatigue than hitherto. It appears well and is dis- 
charging sufficiently. His pulse is now 94; temperature, 98.5; respira- 
tion, 18. 7 p. M. — The President has passed a pleasant day, and lias 
taken his nourishment with apparent relish. His temperature continued 
normal until about 5 o'clock, when a moderate afternoon rise occurred, 
which, however, gives the patient but slight discomfort, and causes no 
anxiety. At present his pulse is 104; temperature, 100.5; respira- 
tion, 20." 

During the day a sensational report was started to the effect thai 



566 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

Dr. Agnew — in whose skill as a surgeon the people had come to 
have the greatest confidence — had said that the President's life 
could not be saved unless the ball was excised at an early day. 
This rumor, however, was promptly denied, as were also some 
alleged unfavorable remarks of Dr. Hamilton. About this time, 
however, some eminent surgeons — notably Dr. Hammond, of New 
York City — began to express, and even to publish, very serious 
strictures upon the views and treatment adopted by the attending 
and consulting ])hysicians of the President ; and, in some instances^ 
the reasoning of the critics seemed to be so Avell borne out by the 
facts as to put the medical and surgical skill of those who managed 
the President's ease to a very hard strain. 

TJie twenty-eiffJith day. — On the 29th of July a Cabinet meetings 
at which all the members except Attorney-General Mac Veagh were 
jjresent, was held at the AVhite House. Public matters were dis- 
cussed, and certain routine official business disposed of in the usual 
way. All this indicated a belief, on the part of the members, that 
the President was on the road to recovery. There was, however, 
no marked change in his condition or prospects. He had passed 
a comfortable night — so said the attendants — and the afternoon 
fever was less pronounced than on the previous day. The three 
bulletins of the surgeons contained about tlie only information 
which could be obtained of the progress of the distinguished pa- 
tient. They were as follows: 

"8:30 A. M. — Immediately after the evening dressing yesterday the 
President's afternoon fever began gradually to subside. He slept -well 
during the night, and this morning is free from fever, looks well, and 
expresses himself cheerfidly. A moderate rise of temperature in the 
afternoon is to l>e anticipated for some days to come. At present his 
pulse is 92; temperature, 98.4; respiration, 18. 2 : 30 p. m. — The Presi- 
dent bore the dressing of his wound well this morning, and exhibited 
very little fatigue after its completion. 'He rests well, and takes an ade- 
quate quantity of nourishment. At present his pulse is 98; tempera- 
ture, 98.4; respiration, 19. 7 p. m. — The President has been comforta- 
ble and cheerful during the day, and has had quite a nap since the noon 
bulletin was issued. At present his pulse is 98 ; temperature, 100 ; res- 
piration, 20." 



SHOT DOWN.— MALAKIA. 567 

To these reports very little can be added for the day, except 
the confirmation of their substance in the evening dispatch of 
Secretary Blaine, which was as folloAVs : 
"Lowell, Mirmter, London: 

"The President's afternoon fever was less to-day than yesterday, and 
at this hour — half past 11 P. M. — has almost disappeared. Temperature 
very nearly normal. His wound is in a healthy condition, and he is 
doing well in all respects. His physicians are greatly encouraged. 

" Blaine, Secretary." 

The twenty-nhith day. — With the morning of the 30th of July 
came the report of a farther — though slight — improvement in the 
President's condition. He was said to have waked early in the 
morning after a refreshing sleep. He showed no fatigue from the 
dressing of the wound in the course of the forenoon, and ate with 
relish a moderate quantity of solid food. He was able, with the 
aid of a contrivance placed under the mattress, partly to sit up in 
bed. The afternoon rise in temperature was moderate. Several 
times during the President's illness the question of malarious in- 
fluences about the White House, as affecting his prospects of re- 
covery, was discussed by the physicians and the general public. 
It was noticed that several of the employes had been taken sick 
in a way to indicate malaria in the surroundings. The condition 
of the Executive Mansion itself was reported as being unfavorable 
to health. So the question of removing the President to a more 
healthful place was again raised and seriously debated by the sur- 
geons. Dr. Bliss, who was a member of the Washington Board 
of Health, which several years before, after a long struggle, had 
succeeded in having a large number of disease-breeding tene- 
ment-houses removed, was very emphatic in his condemnation 
of the " conveniences " of the White House, and said the family 
of the President should be removed while engineers should 
overhaul and renovate the entire plumbing arrangements of the 
premises. 

Of course all possible means are taken to keep the unhealthy 
influence arisring from this condition of affairs from the sick-room 
of the President; and the closed doors, together with the elaborate 



568 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAKFIELD. 

new ventilating apparatus, were believed to furnish ample pro- 
tection. 

Mr. Blaine, in his night dispatch to Minister Lowell, spoke 
encouragingly of the situation, and the official bulletins were 
pitched in the usual hopeful key : 

"8:30 A. M. — The President enjoyed a refreshing sleep during the 
greater part of the night. A gradual improvenoent of his general condi- 
tion in all particulars is observable, and is recognized by himself. His 
pulse is now 92; temperature, 98.5; respiration, 18. 12:30 p. M. — The 
President showed no fatigue from the dressing of his wound this morning. 
His general condition continues gradually to improve. A moderate 
quantity of solid food has been added to his nourishment, and was eaten 
with relish. At present his pulse is 98; temperature, 98.5; respiration, 
20. 7 p. M. — The President has passed the day comfortably and without 
drawback or unpleasant symptoms. The afternoon rise of temjjerature 
is moderate, and did not commence until about 5 o'clock. At present 
his pulse is 104; temperature, 100.2; respiration, 20." 

77/ c thirtieth day. — The physicians again found time to discuss 
the location of the ball in the President's body. The majority had 
still held the opinion that the missile had passed through the peri- 
toneal cavity, and was lodged in the front wall of the abdomen. 
In a dispatch of the day, it was even alleged that the surgeons 
Avere now agreed in this opinion. 

It was believed that the black-and-bluc spot, which had been 
visible on the right side of the abdomen for several days after the 
President received his injury, marked the bullet's location, and this 
theory was apparently confirmed by such results as had thus far 
been obtained with the induction balance. However this might 
be, it was sr.id by the physicians, with much confidence, that the 
ball was, by this stage of progress, encysted, and that not much 
liirther trouble would or could arise from its presence in the body. 
The bulletins of the thirtieth day were as follows: 

"8:30 A. M.— The President slept well during the night, and awoke 
refreshed this morning. His appearance and expression this morning 
indicate continued improvement. At present his pulse is 94 ; tempera- 



SHOT DOWN.— THE INDUCTION BALANCE. 569 

tiire, 98.4; respiration, 18. 12:30 p. m. — The President bore the morn- 
ing dies.'-ing of the wound without fatigue. It continues to look well and 
discharge adequately. The quantity of nourishment now taken daily is 
regarded as quite sufficient to supjiort his system and favor the gradual 
increase in strength, which is plainly observable. At present his pulse 
is 100; temperature, 98.5; respiration, 19. 7 p. m.— The President has 
passed an excellent day. The afternoon ri.«e of temperature has been 
quite insignificant. At present his pulse is 104 ; temperature, 99 : res- 
piration, 20." 

On this day it Avas announced that Professor P>cll had com- 
pleted his instrument for determining the location of the ball. A 
description of the apparatus was given to the public, which, though 
couched in scientific language, may prove of interest to the general 
reader. The induced electrical current, and the interference there- 
with by the presence of a metallic body, were the fundamental 
facts of the invention. The instrument consisted of two circular 
primary coils of insulated copper three inches in diameter and 
half an inch in thickness, the one being constructed of No. 19 
wire, and containing between seven and eight ohms of resistance, 
forming the primary coil, and the other of No. 28 or 30 wire, 
giving more than eighty ohms of resistance, forming the secondary 
coil, the two being connected in separate metallic circuits. In the 
circuit with the former there was placed an electrical battery and a 
spring vibrator, the latter so adjusted as to make a very rapid series 
of " breaks " of the circuit, sending a hundred or more electrical 
pulsations over the circuit and around the primary coil of wire per 
second. A hand telephone only was placed in the circuit with the 
secondary coil. The batteries being connected, and the vibrator 
set in motion, the secondary coil was placed so as to cover the 
primary, and the operator having the telephone at his ear, hears 
the pulsations of the primary current sent through the vibrator 
with each motion of its spring, an induced current being produced 
in the secondary coil by its contiguity with the primary. 

Up to this point the ground traversed had been familiar to all 
electricians for many years'. Professor Bell's discovery, which made 
the subject of special interest, consisted in the fact that if the 



570 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

secondarv coil be gradually turned to one side, so as to uncover a 
portion of its primary, the inductive effects and the resultant tone 
from the vibrator diminish until a point is reached, where only 
about one-third of the surface of the secondary coil remaining 
upon the primary coil, the sound-producing effect of the in- 
duction ceased altogether. If the secondary coil be moved be- 
yond the point of silence the sonorous results become immedi- 
ately apparent. 

At the point of silence it was discovered that that portion of 
the secondary, which still covered an equal portion of its primary, 
was very sensitive to the presence of metallic substances not con- 
nected in any way with the circuits of which the two coils formed 
a portion, disclosing their proximity by making again audible 
the sounds from the vibrator. The results obtained from this 
instrument were equal to those given by the Hughes balance, but 
tlie latter furnishing a more convenient form for general use, it 
was first adopted as the basis of exjjeriments. 

Such was the instrument which the electricians completed, but 
would it work in practically discovering the place of the ball? 
It was determined that on the morrow the apparatus should be 
tested. 

The thirty-first day. — Two things on this day occupied the public 
attention : First, the regular reports ; and second, the experiments 
of Professor Bell. The bulletins were as follows : 

"8:30 A. M. — The President slept well during the night, and this 
morning is cheerful, and expresses himself as feeling better than at any 
time since lie was hurt. He appears stronger, and has evidently made 
progress toward recovery during the last few days. His pulse is now 94; 
temperature, 98.4; respiration, 18. 12 : 30 p. M. — The President's wound 
eontiiuies to do well. At the morning dressing it was found to be in all 
respects in a satisfactory condition. At present his pulse is 100 ; tem- 
perature, 98.4; respiration, 19. 7 r. m. — The President has taken 
nourishment well and in sufficient quantity, and in all respects continues 
to do well. The rise of temperature this afternoon is slight. At present 
his pulse is 104; temperature, 99.5; respiration, 20." 

After the morning dressing of the President's wound, it was 



SHOT DOWN.— THE INDL'CTION BALANCE. 571 

decided to make a formal trial of the induction apparatus for de- 
termining, if possible, the location of the fatal bullet. Professor 
Bell was accordingly brought, with his instrument, to the Presi- 
dent's bedside, and there conducted his experiments. Later in 
the day he wrote out and presented to the surgeons an official re- 
port of the results, as follows: 

" VoLTA Laboratory, 1,221, Connecticut Avenue, "j^ 
" W.\5HINGTon, August 1, 188L J 
"To the Surgeons in attendance upon President Garfield: 

•' GE^JTLEMEN — I beg to submit for your information a brief statement of the 
results obtained with the new form of induction balance in the experiments made 
this morning for (lie purpose of locating the bullet in the person of the President. 
The instrument was tested for sensitiveness several times during the course of the 
experiments, and it was found to respond well to the presentation of a flattened 
bullet at a distance of about four inches from the coils. When the exploring coils 
were passed over that part of the abdomen where a sonorous spot was observed in 
the experiments made on July 2(5, a feeble tone was perceived, but the effect was 
audible a considerable distance around this spot. The sounds were too fteble to be 
entirely satisfactory, as I had i-eason to expect, from the extreme sensitiveness of the 
instrument, a much more marked effect. In order to ascertain whether siaiilar 
sounds might not be obtained in other localities, I explored the whole right side 
and back below the point of entrance of the bullet, but no part gave indications of 
the presence of metal, except an area of about two inches in diameter, containing 
within it the spot previously found to be sonorous. Tlie experiments were repeated 
by Mr. Taintor, who obtained exactly corresponding results. We are therefore 
justified in conclucTIng that the ball is located within the above-named area. In 
our preliminary experiments we found that a bullet like the one in question, when 
in its normal shape, produced no audible effect beyond a distance of two and a-half 
inches; while the same bullet, flattened and presented with its face parallel to the 
plane of the coils, gave indications up to a distance of five inches. The same flat- 
tened bullet, held with its face perpendicular to the plane of the coils, produced no 
sound beyond a distance of one inch. The facts show that in ignorance of the 
actual shape and mode of presentation of the bullet to the exploring instrument, 
the depth at which the bullet lies beneath the surface can not be determined from 
our experiments. I am, gentlemen, yours truly, 

"Alexander Graham Bell."' 

Hie thirty-second day. — Less space was given to-day in the pub- 
lic press to reports of the President's progress than on any previous 

"■Tn the light of the discoveries made at the examination of the President's 
body, after death, it would not appear that the Induction Balance, viewed as an 
agent to determine the position of concealed l)alls of metal — especially lead — is 
an instrument calculated to improve the reputation of science or scientific men. 



572 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

dav since the assassination. An incident of the honr was the re- 
ception by Mrs. Garfield of a draft for a hundred pounds sterling, 
sent by the Disciples, of England, to aid in the reconstruction of 
the church in Washington where the President was in the habit 
of attending worship. The reports for the day were of the same 
general tenor which they had borne since the surgical operation 
(if the 25th July. The bulletins were as follows: 

"8: 30 A. M. — The President passed a very pleasant night, and slept 
sweetly the greater part of the time. This morning he awoke refreshed, 
and appears comfortable and cheerful. Pulse, 94; temperature, *J8.4; 
respiration, 18. 12:30 p. M. — The President is passing the day com- 
fortably. At the morning dressing his wound was found to be doing 
admirably. His pulse is now 99; tem{>erature, 98.4; respiration, 19. 
7 P. M. — The President has continued to progress favorably during the 
day, and appears perceptibly better in his general condition than yester- 
day, a more natural tone of voice being especially perceptible. At pres- 
ent his pulse is 104; temperature, 100; respiration, 20.* 

The thirty-tldrd day. — " President Garfield continues," says the 
New York Tribune, "to gain steadily. In a fortnight more, if all 
goes well with him, he will probably be able to sit up and give 
some attention to the business which awaits his acl^on. He is still 
very weak, but when the healing process in his wound is well 
begun, he will, no doubt, gain strength rapidly." Such was the 
opinion of the country. The physicians in charge, and the attend- 
ants upon the President, all seemed to believe confidently in his 
early convalescence. The most noticeable change in his condition 
was the return of his voice to its wonted fullness and resonance. 
His attendants said that the change in this respect had been very 
marked as compared with three or four days previous. The quan- 
tity of morphine given by the physicians, in order to produce 
sound sleep, had now been reduced to one-eighth of a grain daily, 
and the President Mas able to take more than the usual amount 
of nourishment, including beefsteak, milk, meat extract, toast sat- 
urated with beef juice, and a little coffee. His strength had in- 
creased, and he was able already to do more in the way of turning 



SHOT DOWN.— HOPEFUL SUKGEONS. 57:> 

himself in bed, and helping others to raise his body, than the 
surgeons thought it prudent to allow. 

The bulletins of the day were in every Avay satisfactoiy and 
encouraging : 

8:30 A. M.— The President slept tranquilly the greater part of the 
niglit. Thh morning his temperature is normal, and his general contli- 
tion is satisfactory. Another day of favorable progress is anticipated. 
At present liis pulse is 90; temperature, 96.4; respiration, 18. 12:30 
p. M. — Tlie President continues to progress steadily toward convales- 
cence. He has taken to-day an increased proportion of solid food. His 
wound is doing well, and his general condition is better than yesterday. 
At present his pulse is 100; temperature, 98.4; respiration, W. 7 p. 
r,i. — The President has passed a very satisfactory day. The rise of tem- 
perature this afternoon is slight. At present his pulse is 102 ; tempera- 
ture, 99.4; respiration, 19. 

The proposed removal of the President from the White House 
was again under discussion. It was decided, however, to do noth- 
ing definite in regard to such removal until he could himself be 
taken into the counsel of the physicians, and indicate his prefer- 
ence. Two plans had thus far been discussed: one to take him 
upon a naval vessel, and depart for any point upon the coast where 
the surroundings seemed to promise most for his physical improve- 
ment; the other, to take him to the Soldiers' Home, three miles 
from the White House, and keep him there until he should be 
able to make the journey by rail to Mentor, his Ohio home. 

TJie thirty-fourlli day. — No news of interest to-day. The .space 
allotted in the newspapers to accounts of the progress and condi- 
tion of the President was still further reduced. In conversation 
about the President's condition, Dr. Hamilton was reported to 
have discussed the situation quite freely, and expressed the opinion 
that President Garfield was advancing toward recovery in a very 
satisfactory manner. In reply to the direct question: "Do you 
think the President will recover?" the Doctor said: "I have no 
doubt whatever of his ultimate recovery." Dr. Hamilton also 
expressed the opinion that there was no malaria in the patient's 



o ( 4 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

system. In response to interrogatories relative to moving the 
patient ffom the Execntive Mansion, the doctor said that nothing 
could yet be determined, as the President was in no condition to 
be moved. He thought, however, when the proper time arrived, 
that a trip down the Potomac would be decidf dly beneficial, and 
would hasten his recovery. 

In accordance with the custom which the physicians had now 
adopted, only two bulletins were issued during the day, and they 
were of a sort to create no excitement. 

" 8: 30 A. M. — The President continues to improve. He slept well dur- 
ing the night, and this morning looks and expresses himself cheerfully. 
Another satisfactory day is anticipated. At present his pulse is 90 ; tem- 
perature, 98.4; respiration, 18, 7 p. M. — As the morning bulletin indi- 
cated would probably be the case, the President has passed another good 
day without drawback or unpleasant symptoms of any kind. At 10:30 
p. M. his pulse was 96; temperature, 98.4; respiration, 18. The after- 
noon rise of temperature came on late and \vas moderate in degree. 
Now his pulse is 102; temperature, 100.2; respiration, 19." 

Thus from day to day, and from week to week, the time wore 
on, the people regarding it merely as a matter of time when their 
beloved President w^ould be restored to life and health. At this 
date they did not anticipate an alternative issue. 

The thirty-fifth day. — In the leading jsapers of August 5th, no 
more than a quarter of a column was devoted to President Gar- 
field. The citizens of Newport, Rhode Island, sent, through the 
mayor of the city, an invitation to the President to come to their 
famous resort as soon as his wound would permit, and to remain 
as their guest until complete recovery. The bulletins of the day 
contained the only information. They said: 

"8:30 a. m. — The President slept naturally the greater part of the 
night, although he has taken no morphia during the last twenty-four 
hours. His improved condition warranted, several days ago, a diminu- 
tion in the quantity of morphia administered hypodermically at bed- 
time, and it was reduced at first to one-twelfth and afterward to one- 
sixteenth of a grain in the twenty-four hours, without any consequent 
unpleasant result, and finally has been altogether dispensed with. His 



SHOT DOWX.— HOPEFUL INDICATIONS. 575 

^j)ndition this morning exliibits continued improvement, and another 
good day is anticipated. At present his pulse is 88 ; temperature, 98.4; 
respiration, 18. 7 p. m. — The President has passed another good day. 
He has taken an adequate quantity of nourishment, and has had several 
pleasant naps during the day. At 12:30 p. m. his pulse was 98; tem- 
perature, 98.4; respiration, 18. After 4 p. m. his temperature began to 
rise as usual, but to a moderate degree and without perceptible dryness 
of skin. His pulse is 102; temperature, 100.4; respiration, 19. 

The thirty-sixth day. — The public had now accepted, Avith abid- 
ing trust, the oft-repeated assurances of the surgeons that the 
President was on the road to health. The White House, from 
being the center of interest for the people of the whole country, 
as it had been two weeks before, had become the dullest place in 
Washington. Doctors came in and Avent out, and casual inquirers 
continued their visits. The military guards patrolled the space in 
front of the one gate through which access was had to the grounds, 
but beyond this nothing in the appearance or surroundings of the 
place indicated that public attention was, in any marked degree, 
turned in that direction. Great interest in the progress of the 
case continued, but it was not so intense and all-absorbing as 
hitherto. The bulletins were again the only news: 

"8:30 A. M. — The President has passed an excellent night, sleeping 
sweetly the greater part of the time. This morning he is cheerful, and 
all the indications promise another favorable day. Pulse, 92 ; tempera- 
ture, 98.4; re.spiration, 18. 7 p. m. — The President passed a comfort- 
able morning, his symptoms and general condition being quite satisfac- 
tory. At 12:30 p. M. his pulse was 100; temperature, 98.5; respiration, 
19. The afternoon rise of temperature began as late as yesterday, but 
has been higher, though unaccompanied by dryness of skin. At 7 p. M. 
his pulse was 102; temperature, 101.8 ; respiration, 19. The appearance 
of the wound at the evening dressing was, however, good, and there has 
been no interruption to the flow of pus." 

The thirty-seventh day. — The 7th of August was probably the 
most quiet day since the President was wounded. There was 
some comment about the city regarding the information contained 
in the morning bulletin, the language of which was, that the Presi- 



■■iib LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

dent "this morning is in good condition, although the effects of 
the febrile disturbance of yesterday are still slightly perceptible in 
pulse and temperature." Many persons construed this sentence as 
indicative of unfavorable symptoms; but the general public ac- 
oe])tcd it as reassuring, and consequently there were but few inqui- 
ries at the Mansion in the course of the day. 

Within a narrower and better informed circle it was suspected 
that another pus sac was forming in the President's body, but the 
opinion did not, for tlio time, obtain publicity. The two official 
bulletins of tlie day were as follows : 

"8: 30 A. M. — Shortly after the biilletiu of last evening was issued tlie 
President fell into a jJeasaiit sleep, during which the febrile rise subsided 
and was no longfn- perceptibL; when he awoke at 10 p. m. Subsequently he 
slept well, though with occasional breaks during the rest of the night. No 
niorp'iia or other anodyne was administered. This morning he is in good 
condition, although the effects of the febrile disturbance of yesterday are 
still slightly perceptible in pul-e and temperature. At present his pulse 
is 96; temperature, 98.7; respiration, 18. 7 r. M. — The President has 
been comf)rtable during the day, although his temperature began to rise 
earlier than yesterday, and rose almost as high. At 12:30 p. iM. his 
pulse was 104; temperature, 100; respiration, 20. At this hour his 
pulse is 104; temperature, 101.2; respiration, 20. He has taken nour- 
ishment as usual, and has had several refreshing uaps during the day." 

One of the unofficial reports of the day was to the cflPect that an 
effort was making to trace out exactly the course of the wound, 
and that to this end an instrument, called the electric probe, wa.i 
to be inserted in the track of the ball. Professor Taintor was 
called to the Executive Mansion late in the afternoon to consult 
with the attending surgeons regarding the use of the electric probe. 
Afler the consultation, he was re(piested to return in the morning 
and to bring with him a baltery of two cells. The purpose was, 
should it be determined to experiment with the instrument, to 
endeavor to ascertain the exact ccmrse of the wound from tlic 
surface of the body to the spot where the ball was lodged, and if 
})ossible to discover whether there was a pus cavity, and, if so, 
its exact location. 



SHOT DOWN.— ANOTHER OPERATION. 5< t 

The thirfy-e'iglith day. — On this morning the physicians hekl a 
consultation. The question of the President's afternoon fever was 
discussed, and Dr. Agncw was reported as having urged upon 
the surgeons the fact that the febrile rise was greater and more 
persistent than it should be if occasioned by the natural and inevi- 
table processes of healing. The opinion was freely expressed that 
the channel of the wound was in some measure obstructed, and the 
propriety of a second operation to relieve the difficulty was sug- 
gested as the proper remedy. Accordingly, after the morning 
dressing of the wound, a second operation was performed, of which 
Dr. Bliss has given the following official account in the Medical 
Record fur October 8, 1881: 

" The necessity of the operation was plainly developed by passing a 
flexible catheter through the opening previously made, which readily 
coursed toward the crest of the ilium, a distance of about seven inches. 
This cavity -was evacuated twice daily, by passing through the catheter, 
previously inserted in the track, an aqueous solution of permanganate of 
potash from a small hand-fountain, slightly elevated, the water and pus 
returning and escaping at the opening externally. 

"The indications for making a point of exit in the dependent portion 
of this pus sac were urgent, and on August 8th the operation was i^er- 
formed by extending the incision previously made, downward and for- 
Avard through the skin, subcutaneous fascia, external and internal oblique 
muscles, to a sinus or pus channel. The exposed muscle contained a 
considerable number of minute spiculse of bone. Upon carrying a long, 
curved director through the opening between the fractured rib downward 
to the point of incision, there was a deeper channel Avhich had not been 
exposed by the operation thus far, and the incision was carried through 
the transversalis muscle and transversalis fascia, opening into the deeper 
track and exposing the end of the director. A catheter was then passed 
into the portion of the track below the incision, a distance of three and 
one-half inches, and in a direction near the anterior superior spinous 
process of the ilium. The President was etherized during this operation." 

This description of the operation, as narrated by Dr. Bliss, may 
doubtless be accepted, though involving many technical expres- 
sions which, under the circumstances, are unavoidable, as in every 
37 



578 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

way correct and adequate. The regular bulletins were issued as 
usual and presented the following summary of symptoms : 

"8:30 A. M. — The President passed a comfortable night and slept well 
without an anodyne. The rise of temperature of yesterday afternoon 
subsided during the evening, and did not recur at any time through the 
night. At present he appears better than yesterday morning. Pulse, 
94; temperature, 98.4; respiration, 18. 

"10:' 30. — It having become necessary to make another opening to 
facilitate the escape of pus, we took advantage of the improved condition 
of the President this morning. Shortly after the morning bulletin was 
issued he was etherized. The incision tended downward and forward, 
and a counter-opening was made into the track of the ball below the 
margin of the twelfth rib, which it is believed will effect the desired object. 
He bore the operation well, and has now recovered from the effects of 
the etherization and is in excellent condition. 

7 P. M. — After the last bulletin was issued the President suffered some- 
what for a time from nausea due to the ether, but this has now subsided. 
He has had several refreshing naps, and his general condition is even 
better than might have been expected after the etherization and opera- 
tion. At noon his pulse was 104; temperature, 100.2; respiration, 20. 
At present his pulse is 108 ; temperature, 101.9 ; respiration, 19." 

The thirty-ninth day. — The effect of the surgical operation was 
salutary in so far as to make it practicable to dispense with the 
drainage-tube, to the great relief of the patient. The effects of the 
etherization, however, were somewhat distressing, and the shock 
of the operation no doubt told unfavorably on the President's 
small reserve of vitality. None the less, his condition was so far 
from unfavorable that Dr. Agnew returned to Philadelphia and 
Secretary Blaine made preparations to take a brief respite from 
care by a visit to his own State. The ripple of anxiety, excited 
by the recent operation, passed away, and matters Avent on as be- 
fore. The official reports of the day were as follows : 

" 8: 30 A. M. — Notwithstanding the effects of yesterday's operation, the 
President slept the greater part of the night without tlie use of moq:)hia. 
This morning his pulse is 98; temperature, 99.8; respiration, 19. Since 
yesterday afternoon suiall quantities of liquid nourishment, given at short 



SHOT DOWN.— BLAIXE VISITS MAINE. 579 

intervals, have been retained, and this morning larger quantities are 
being administered without gastric disturbance. 

" 12: 30 p. M. — At the dressing of the President's wound this morning, 
it was found that pus had been discharged spontaneously and freely through 
the counter-opening made yesterday. He has been quite comfortable 
this morning, and taken a liberal supply of liquid nourishment. His 
pulse is now 104; temperature, 99.7; respiration, 19. 7 p. m. — The 
President has been very easy during the day, and has continued to take 
the nourishment allowed without gastric disturbance. The degree of fever 
this P. M. differs little from that of 3'esterday. Pulse, 106 ; temperature, 
101.9; respiration, 19." 

It was one of the incidents of the day, that the President wrote 
his name, with the date, August 9, 1881, in a comparatively steady 
hand and without a serious effort. 

Tlic fortieth day. — The morning news recited that the President's 
appetite had somewhat improved, but this cheering information was 
coupled with the announcement that the sufferer had not recovered 
sufficiently to be raised, as hitherto, into the semi-recumbent position. 
It transpired that the writing of the President's name on the pre- 
vious day had been an official act, namely, the attestation of a 
paper of extradition in the case of an escaped Canadian forger, 
who had several years yet to serve in prison. The general indica- 
tions were thought so favorable that Secretary Blaine did not longer 
delay his departure, but left on his contemplated visit for home. In 
the afternoon Mrs. Garfield sat for a long time beside her husband, 
talking with him, in a quiet way, of things most dear to each. The 
physicians' official report closed the history of the day, as follows: 

" 8 A. M. — The President slept soundly during the night, and this morn- 
ing his temperature is again normal, although liis pulse is still frequent. 
At present it is 104; temperature, 98.5 ; respiration, 19. 12 : 30 p. m,— 
The President is getting through the day in a very satisfactory manner. 
He has asked for, and taken a small quantity of solid food in addition 
to the liquid nourishment allowed. His temperature and respiration con- 
tinue within the normal range, though the debility following the operation 
is still shown by the frequency of pulse. At present his pulse is 110; 
temperature, 98.6; respiration, 19. 7 p. m. — The President has passed 



580 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAKFIELD. 

an excellent day. The drainage of the wound is now efficient, and the 
pus secreted by the deeper portions has been coming away spontaneously. 
The afternoon rise of temperature is almost a degree less than yesterday 
and the day before. Pulse at present 108 ; temperature, 101 ; respira- 
tion, 19." 

The forty-first day. — The passing epoch was again marked l)y a 
division of opinion among the newspapers. A series of leading 
articles in the Xew York Herald, understood to be from the pen 
of Dr. Hammond, were not only despondent in tone and severe 
upon the attending surgeons, but positively prophetic of a fatal 
termination of the President's case. This view of the matter was, 
however, ably controverted in other leading papers, and the peoi)le 
were thus both led and misled. Looking to the sick room itself, 
there seemed to be not much cause for alarm. The President had 
improved somewhat in strength and appetite. He conversed freely. 
Especially did he surprise and gratify his attendants by calling fir 
a writing tablet and penning a short but affectionate letter to his 
mother, — the last he ever wrote. 

Turning to the official reports of the day, the following summary 
of the President's progress was presented: 

"8:30 A. M.— The President has passed an exceedingly good night; 
sleeping sweetly with but few short breaks, and awaking refreshed this 
morning at a later hour than usual. At the morning dre.-sing, just com- 
pleted, it was found that the deeper parts of the wound had been emptied 
spontaneously. His temperature shows an entire absence of fever this 
morning, and his pulse, which is less frequent than yesterday, is improv- 
ing in quality. At present it is 100; temperature, 98.6; respiration, 19. 

12:30 p. M. — The President is doing well to-day. Besides a liberal 
supply of liquid nourishment at regular intervals, he has taken for break- 
fast, with evident relish, an increased quantity of solid food. He continues 
free from fever, his skin is moist, but without undue perspiration. Pulse, 
102; temperature, 98.6; respiration, 19. 

" 7 p. :\i. — After the noon bulletin was issued, the President's condition 
continued as then reported until about 4 p. m., when the connnencement 
of the afternoon febrile rise was noted. In its degree it did not differ 
materially from that of yesterday. His pulse is now 108; temperature, 
101.2 ; re.-^piration, 19." 



SHOT DOWN.-HIS LAST LETTER. 581 

"hU-J^ ChvJi^ /iws^ Cyyy^A. lUsbi^ 

FAC-SIMILE OF THE LAST LETTER WRITTEN BY GARFIELD. 



582 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAKFIELD. 

The forty-second day. — Not much change. The President was 
weary and longed for a change of scene. The day when he could 
be safely removed from the White House was anxiously antici- 
pated both by himself and the physicians. The United States 
steamer Tallapoosa, which had been undergoing rejjairs and fitting 
out for sea during the past month, was finally in complete readi- 
ness-, and would be manned on the morrow. Assistant Paymaster 
Henry D. Smith, formerly of the Dispatch, had been transferred 
to the Tallapoosa. In a conversation of the morning, Mr. Smith 
gave a description of the manner in which the vessel had been fit- 
ted out. A suite of rooms had been 23reparcd expressly for the 
use of President Garfield in the event of its being found practi- 
cable to take him out on the water, and at this time the suggestion 
of such a cruise seemed to please him greatly. The suite con- 
sisted of four comparatively large rooms, including a bed-cham- 
ber, reception and ante-room, and a bath-room. Paymaster Smith 
said further, that if it should be determined to take the President 
on the vessel, a swinging bed would be hung in his chamber so 
that the patient should not be annoyed by the motion of the ves- 
sel. Such were the plans and hopes which were never, alas, to 
be realized. 

The surgeons' reports for August 12th contained about all that 
could be said concerning the President's condition for the day : 

" 8 : 80 A. M. — The President slept -well during the greater part of the 
night. The fever of yesterday afternoon subsided during the evening, 
and has not been perceptible since 10 p. M. His general condition this 
morning is good. Pulse, 100; temperature, 98.6; respiration, 19. 

"12:30 p. M. — ^The President has passed a comfortable morning. He 
continues to take, Avith repugnance, the liquid nourishment allowed, and 
ate with relish for breakfast, a larger quantity of solid food than he took 
yesterday. At present his pulse is 100 ; temperature, 99.8 ; respiration, 19. 

" 7 P. M. — The President has passed a comfortable day. At the even- 
ing dressing the wound was found to be doing well. The quantity of 
pus secreted is gradually diminishing. Its character is healthy. The rise 
of tempei-ature this afternoon reached the same point as yesterday. At 
present the pulse is 108; temperature, 101.2; respiration, 19." 



SHOT DOWN.— GRAVE APPEEHENSIONS. 583 

Thus from hour to hour, from day to day, from week to week, did 
the President tread the long and weary way onward and — downward. 

The forty -third day. — It was about this time that the attending 
surgeons finally abandoned their original diagnosis of the wound ; 
that is, in so far as it concerned the direction of the ball. For 
some time Dr. Hamilton had given it as his view that the bullet, 
instead of entering the peritoneal cavity, and perforating the liver, 
had been turned downward at nearly a right angle to its course, 
and was lodged in the region behind the ilium. This view of 
the case was now accepted by the physicians in charge. In a con- 
versation, of the day, Dr. Bliss said that the latest examinations 
of the wound had clearly shown that the ball did not go through 
the liver. The liver M^as certainly injured by the shot, either by 
concussion or inflammation. At the present time, however, every 
indication corroborated the idea that the ball was in the region 
of the iliac fossa, and also that it was doing no harm. 

Things had not gone well during the night. The President had 
been restless; and, contrary to the usual history of the case, fever 
was reported in the morning bulletin. The foreign dispatch of 
Hon. R. R. Hitt, Acting Secretary of State, referred to the Presi- 
dent's excited condition, and could only reiterate the somewhat un- 
certain echo of the bulletins, that the surgeons thought him " do- 
ing well." The official reports themselves were couched in the 
following language ; 

"8:30 A. M. — The President did not sleep as well as usual during the 
early part of the night. After midnight, however, his sleep was re- 
freshing, and broken only at long intervals. This morning he has a 
little fever, nevertheless he expresses himself as feeling better than for 
several days past. Pulse, 104; temperature, 100.8; respiration, 19. 
12:30 p.m. — The President has been cheerful and easy during the 
morning, and his temperature has fallen a little more than a degree 
and a half since the morning bulletin was issued. His pulse is now 
102; temperature, 99.2; respiration, 18. 6:30 p. M. — Since the last 
bulletin the President has continued to dj well. The afternoon fever 
has been half a degree less than yesterday. At present his pulse is 
104; temperature, 100.7; respiration, 19." 



58-1: LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

The forty-fourth daij. — Oue of the difficulties with which 
President Garfield had to contend was a certain weakness 
of digestion. Notwithstanding his great hodily strength and 
general robustness, it appears that never after the war were 
ids assimilative powers equal to superficial indications. He 
liad been, both by preference and necessity, a plain liver. 
The "eating" of the White House had not suited him. The 
French cookery of the- establishment had proved at once dis- 
tasteful and injurious to his health and spirits. After he was 
wounded, this weakness in his bodily functions became at 
once more pronounced. Great difficulty was experienced in 
securing an alimentation sufficient to sustain life and repair 
the fearful waste to which he was subjected. The sensitive- 
ness of the digestive organs at times became critical. It was 
so on the 14th of August, when the physicians were almost 
baffled in the attempt tft maintain nutrition. For the first 
time there was talk of the stronger stimulants. AVhisky and 
brandy were both used, though not in large quantities. It 
could be plainly seen that under the outwardly confident tone 
of the official reports there lurked the shadow of fear. The 
regular bulletins of the day came out as usual, with the fol- 
lowing account of the sufferer's condition : 

"8:30 A. M.— The President slept well during the night, and this 
morning expresses himself as feeling comfortable. His temperature is 
one degree less than at the same hour yesterday. His general condi- 
tion is good. Pulse, 100; temperature, 99.8; respiration, 18. 12:30 
p. M. — The President has done well this morning. His temperature 
has fallen one-half a degree since the last bulletin was issued. At 
the morning dressing the condition of the wound was found to be ex- 
cellent, and the discharge of pus adequate and healthy. Pulse, 96; 
temperature, 99.3; respiration, 18. 6:30 p. m.— The condition of the 
President has not materially changed since noon. The afternoon febrile 
rise is about the same as yesterday. Puke, 108; temperature, 100.8; 
respiration, 19." 

The forty fifth day.— A day of great alarm; and the alarm 
was fully justified. There was evidence of weakening all 



SHOT DOWN.— DANGEROUS SYMPTOMS. 585 

around. Tlie respiration had gone up. The temperature had 
gone up. So had the pulse to a fearful rate. The enfeebled 
stomach had broken down. That was the secret of the diffi- 
culty. Without food a well man can not live. How much 
less a man wounded to death and wasted by forty-five days 
of suffering! With every attempt to feed the President, his 
stomach rejected the food. If this state of things should con- 
tinue, life would go out like a taper. It was to the credit 
of the surgeons in charge that they took the situation coolly 
and set about devising the best possible means of triumphing 
over the fearful obstacle which lay squarely across the possi- 
bility of recovery. The plan suggested and resorted to was 
artificial alimentation by the administration of eneraata. In 
the after part of the day, Washington, and indeed the whole 
country, was filled with wild rumors which conveyed very 
little information and could be traced to no authentic source. 
The only trustworthy information was to be obtained from the 
official bulletins of the surgeons, which were as follows: 

"8:30 A. M. — The President did not rest as well as usual last night. 
Until toward three o'clock his sleep was not sound, and he awoke at 
short intervals. His stomach was irritable and he vomited several 
times. About three o'clock he became composed, and slept well until 
after seven this morning. His stomach is still irritable, and his tem- 
perature rather higher than yesterday. At present his pulse is 108 ; 
temperature, 100.2; respiration, 20. 12:30 P. M. — Since tlie last bul- 
letin, the President has not again vomited, and has lieen able to retain 
the nourishment administered. At the morning dressing, the discharge 
of pus was free and of good character. Since then his pulse has been 
more frequent; but the temperature has fallen to a little below what 
it was at this time yesterday. At present his pulse is 118 ; tempera- 
ture, 99; respiration, 19. 6:30 p. M. — The irritability of the Presi- 
dent's stomach returned during the afternoon and he has vomited 
three times since one o'clock. Although the afternoon rise of tempera- 
ture is less than it has been for several days, the pulse and respiration 
are more frequent, so that his condition is, on the whole, less satis- 
factory. His pulse is now 130; temperature, 99.6; respiration, 22." 



586 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

These reports clearly indicated the most serious crisis which 
had yet occurred since the President was shot. Unless the 
functions of the stomach could be restored by rest, there 
could be but one issue, and that was near at hand. 

The forty-sixth day. — All that could be said was that there 
had been slight improvement in some particulars. In the 
main matter — that of nourishment — the case was as bad as 
ever. ^Neither the city nor the country would have been sur- 
prised to hear that the President was dying or dead. The 
whole question, as matters now stood, was this: How long 
can he live ? He himself was conscious, in good measure, of 
the appalling odds against him, but his calm heroism never 
wavered for a moment. From the first he onl^^ once — and 
that but for an instant — gave way to despondency, when he 
said to his wife that, considering the fact that he was already 
fifty years old, and that the brief remainder of his life would, 
perhaps, be weakened — possibly helpless — from his injury, it 
hardly appeared to be worth the struggle which his friends 
and himself were making to save it. This thought, however, 
found but a moment's lodgment; and even now, when his 
vital forces seemed to be flowing out to the last ebb of de- 
spair, he stood up manfiill}' and faced the enemy. His will 
remained vigorous, and he was cheerful in spirit — this, too, 
when the very water wdiich was tendered him to refresh his 
exhausted powers was instantly rejected by the stomach. It 
w^as clear that no human vigor could long withstand so dread- 
ful an ordeal ; and the physicians recognized and acknowl- 
edged the fact that their unnatural system of alimentation 
was Ijut a makeshift which would presently end in failure. 
Then death. The bulletins said: 

"8:30 A. ]\r. — The President was somewhat restless during the early 
part of the night. Since three o'clock he has slept tranquilly most of 
the time. Nutritious enemata are successfully employed to sustain him. 
Altogether the symptoms are less urgent tlian yesterday afternoon. At 
present his pulse is 110; temperature, 98.6; respiration, 18. 12 : 30 p. 
M. — The President has been tranquil since the morning bulletin, but 



SHOT DO^YN.— BETTER NEWS. 587 

has not yet rallied from the prostration of yesterday as much as was 
hoped. The enemata administered are still retained. At present his 
pulse is 114; temperature, 98.3; respiration, 18. 7 P. M. — The Presi- 
dent's symptoms are still grave, yet he seems to have lost no ground 
during the day, and his condition on the whole is rather better than 
yesterday. The enemata are retained. At present his pulse is 120; 
temperature, 98.9; respiration, 19." 

The forty-seventh day. — ]!^otwitlistanding the desperate ex- 
treme to which the poor President was reduced, the dispatches 
came, on the morning of August 17th, with the news that he 
was better. The dreadful nausea had passed, and two or 
three times some nutritive food had been swallowed and re- 
tained. Moreover, he had slej^t as much as an hour at a 
time. The examination of the woui?d, too, showed some little 
ground for encouragement, for the process of healing had 
gone on, notwithstanding the terrible exhaustion of the last 
three days. In the inner circle about the President's bed 
there was a more hopeful feeling. "Little Crete," the dar- 
ling wife of the suft'ering Chief Magistrate, ventured out, with 
her three boys, to take a drive in the open air. Mr. Smalley, 
of the Tribune, thus spoke of her, as her carriage passed 
through the gateway: 

"Her face, as she gave a nod and a smile of recognition, looked 
bright and hopeful. I knew that the agony of apprehension must be 
over and the President must be on the upward road again. The 
brave little Avoman ! What a terrible strain she has endured and with 
what wonderful courage and patience she has met every fresh draft 
upon her strength and resolution, keeping always out of her face the 
pain and dread tugging at her heart, lest the slightest glimpse of it 
should discourage her husband in his long battle with death! I re- 
member that at Elberon, just before the fatal journey to Washington, 
General Garfield spoke of her with tenderness and pride, as a steel- 
spring sort of a woman — supple, bright, enduring, and rebounding after 
the severest strains. If he wins his way back to health again he will 
owe his recovery, I firmly believe, as much to the loving and cheer- 
ful ministrations of his wife, as to the six doctors who wait upon him, 
skillful and devoted as they are." 



588 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

Later in the day, Mrs. Garfield received a dispatch from 
the Queen — there has been only one Queen since the Presi- 
dent was shot — which was answered by the w^ife in her own 
way. The dispatches were as follows: 

"To 3Irs. Garfield, Washington, D. C: 

"I am most anxious to know how the President is to-day, and to 
express my deep sympathy with you both. 

" The Queen, Osborne." 

"Ber Majesty Queen Victoria, Osborne, England: 

" Your Majesty's kind inquiry finds the President's condition changed 
for the better. In the judgment of his medical advisers there is strong 
hope of his recovery. His mind is entirely clear, and your Majesty's 
kind expressions of sympathy are most grateful to him, as they are 
gratefully acknowledged by me. Lucretia R. Gaefield." 

The regular bulletins gave the usual epitome of symptoms, 
as follows: 

"8:30 A. M. — The President has passed a tranquil ni^ht, sleeping most 
of the time. He continues to retain the nutritive enemata, and has not 
vomited since the last bulletin. His general condition appears more 
hopeful than at this time yesterday. Pulse, 110; temperature, 98.3; 
respiration, 18. 12:30 p. M. — The President's condition has not materi- 
ally changed since the last bulletin. He has been tranquil and has slept 
some, has not vomited, and tlie nutritive enemata are still retained. 
Pulse, 112; temperature, 98.7 ; respiration, 18. 6:30 p. m.— The Presi- 
dent's condition is even better than it was this morning. The wound 
continues to do well. At present his pulse is 112; temperature, 98.8; 
respiration, 18." 

Meanwhile the trusted Secretary Blaine had reached Washing- 
ton and was again at the bedside of his chief. In the evening he 
sent abroad two dispatches containing a brief summary of the 
President's condition as determined by the official reports and by 
his own observation. And so the day closed in hope rather than 
despair. 

Tlicjorty-eigldh day. — The President was still further improved — 
so thought and said his physicians. The mutinous stomach, which 



SHOT DOWN.— CHEERFUL AND BRAVE. 589 

had threatened to end his life by refusing to perform its Avork at a 
time when it was not possible for his weakened system to bear for 
any lengthened period the strain of the wound and the fever with- 
out sustenance, had renewed its functions, and the experiments 
made during the day gave reasons to hope that nourishing food 
might now be administered with safety. It was good news indeed, 
and it would have been better if it had not been coupled with the 
statement that the President was reduced almost to a skeleton. 
From 210 pounds — his weight when shot — he had wasted away 
till his weight was hardly 135 pounds. Yet with only this pitiful 
bony structure of himself left he was reported as cheerful and brave! 
He was able to take more nourishment than on the previous day, 
and it appeared that his alimentation was now likely to be suffi- 
cient ; but just as this beneficial reaction became noticeable, another 
complication arose which threatened to overbalance all the expected 
good. On the 17th of August a slight inflammation was noticed in 
the right parotid gland. By the following morning the swelling 
was more pronounced, and immediately became a source of annoy- 
ance and alarm. The tumefaction assumed the appearance of a car- 
buncle and there were indications of approaching suppuration of 
the gland. The face, especially on the right side, became distorted, 
and the President suffered great pain from the inflamed part. It 
was clear that in some measure the blood of the sufferer had been 
poisoned by the discharges of the wound, and that nature was at- 
tempting to relieve her distress by the destruction of a gland. The 
official bulletins of the day, though pervaded with the same spirit 
of optimism which characterized them all, were not of a sort to 
inspire confidence. They said : 

" 8 : 30 A. M. — The President has passed a very comfortable night, sleep- 
ing well the greater part of the time. This morning his pulse is slower 
and his general condition better than yesterday at the same hour. Pulse, 
104, temperature, 98.8; respiration, 17. 12:30 p. M.— The President 
is suffering some discomfort this morning from commencing inflammation 
of the right parotid gland. He has asked for and retained several por- 
tions of liquid nourishment, much more than he could swallow yesterday. 
The nutritive enemata continue to be used with success. At present his 



590 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

pulse is lOS ; temperature, 98.4 ; respiration, 18. 6 : 30 p. m. — The Presi- 
dent has done well during the day. He has taken additional nourish- 
ment by the mouth this afternoon with evident relish and without sub- 
sequent nausea. His general condition is rather better than at this time 
yesterday. Pulse, 108; temperature, 100; respiration, 18." 

The forty -ninth day. — With the 19th of August a more hopeful 
feeling again predominated. It was alleged by the surgeons that 
the President had made some improvement. Some was better than 
none. His nutriment for the day amounted to nine ounces of 
liquid food. The physicians gave assurance to the public that the 
inflamed gland did not necessarily imply blood poisoning. The 
President slept at intervals. In his waking moments he was still 
cheerful, but expressed a great yearning to get away from Wash- 
ington and return to his home at Lawnfield. 

In these days of alternate hope and anxious alarm the question 
naturally arose as to what had become of the Executive Depart- 
ment of the Government. The President was still himself in a 
certain sense, but he was without doubt utterly incapacitated to 
perform any executive duty. There was no acting President, and 
to tell the truth the people did not desire one. Some leading pa- 
pers advocated the assumption of certain of the duties of the Presi- 
dent by members of the Cabinet; but this untried and — it may be 
added — unconstitutional measure was not attempted ; and so all ex- 
ecutive functions remained in abeyance. The acts usually per- 
formed by the President were simply omitted until he should re- 
cover. Fortunately in a time of peace and during a recess of Con- 
gress, these acts could be postponed without any great detriment to 
public interests. The appointing pow^er, except in so for as it is 
delegated ])y law to the heads of Departments, was in a state of 
complete suspension, but this fact occasioned no trouble, except to 
applicants for office. Under our system, where vacancies in Presi- 
dential appointments occur, by death or resignation, there is usually 
a deputy or some other officer who is authorized by law to per- 
form temporarily the duties of the office. In the cases of post-offi- 
ces where there are no deputy postmasters, the Post-Office Depart- 
ment is authorized to send special agents to take charge until the 



SHOT DOWN.— A "DISCOVEEY." 591 

vacant postmastership can be filled. If the President's prostration 
should continue — so reasoned the people — until the meeting of 
Congress — a contingency wholly improbable — there would be no 
stoppage of any part of the machinery of Government. In short, 
the American people were taught by a practical, though painful, 
example the great lesson, how little need there is for a nation of 
freemen to be governed — how amply able such a peoj)le are to 
adapt themselves to any emergency. The official reports of the 
day gave as usual the facts on which various opinions of the Presi- 
dent's prospects were based: 

"8 A. M. — The President slej^t much of the night, and this morning 
is more comfortable than yesterday. The swelling of the right parotid 
gland has not increased since yesterday. Nutritive enemata ai-e still 
given with success, and liquid food has been swallowed and relished. 
Pulse, 100; temperature, 98.4; respiration, 17. 

"12: 30 p. M. — The President's condition has perceptibly improved dur- 
ing the last twenty-four hours. He is taking to-day an increased quan- 
tity of liquid food by the mouth. His pulse is now 106 ; temperature, 
98.8; respiration, 17. 

"6:30 p. M. — The President has been very easy during the afternoon 
and the favorable conditions reported in the last bulletin continue. 
Pulse, 106; temperature, 100; respiration, 18." 

Thefftieth day. — There could be no denial of another rally — 
though slight — on the part of the President. During the day 
a surgical experience occurred. Dr. Bliss, in treating the 
wound, succeeded in passing with a flexible tube what he sup- 
posed to be an obstruction in the path of the ball. When 
this was done, the tube suddenly dropped, almost of its owm 
weight, down the channel* to the depth of ticelve and a half 
inches! The end of the probe was thus brought, as was con- 
fidently believed, into immediate proximity with the ball. The 
parotitis, from wdiich the President was now^ sufl[ering so se- 

* This channel was, of course, not the track of the ball, but the insidious bur- 
row of the pus, unfortunately assisted in its downward progress by the mistaken 
manipulations of the surgeons. 



592 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

verely, was reported as "about the same." As a consequence 
of this intiammation, though no acknowledgment of the fact 
was made at the time, the patient's face suft'ered a partial 
paralysis, which continued seriously to afflict him to the last. 
The summary of symptoms was published at the usual hours 
by the surgeons and presented the following statement of the 
President's condition. 

"8:30 A. M. — The President has passed a quiet night, and this morn- 
ing his condition does not differ materially from what it was yesterday. 
The swelling of the parotid gland is unchanged and is free from pain. 
This morning his pulse is 98; temperature, 98.4; respiration, 18. 

"12:30 p.m. — The President continues to do well. He is taking 
liquid food by the mouth in increased quantity and with relish. The 
nutritive enemata are still successfully given, but at longer intervals. 
His pulse is now 107; temperature, 98.4; respiration, 18. 

" 6 : 30 p. M. — The President has passed the day quietly. He has been 
able to take more liquid food by the mouth than yesterday, and the 
quantity given by enema has been proportionately diminished. The pa- 
rotid swelling remains about the same. Pulse, 110; temperature, 100.4; 
respiration, 19." 

The. ffty-first day, — It was a long and sorrowful journey. 
There were pitfalls in the way. That inflamed gland now be- 
came a source of profound anxiety. The salivary secretions 
were so augmented and at the same time vitiated as con- 
stantly to All the patient's throat, threatening strangulation. 
The tendency to nausea was thus excited, and the President's 
stomach again rejected food. This fact told immediately on 
the modicum of strength still remaining, and as the day pro- 
gressed it appeared that medical skill Avas about exhausted in 
a hopeless struggle against the inevitable. The surgeons, 
however, as is the wont with the profession, still renewed the 
battle, now with this expedient and now with that, but always 
with the purpose of keeping the President alive until some 
kind of favorable reaction could supervene. The feature of 
the day's history was that the most serious alarm was spread 



SHOT DOWN.— THE INFLAMED PAEOTID. 593 

abroad after the issuance of the evening bulletin. The three 
official reports were as follows : 

" 8 : 30 A. M. — The President awoke more frequently than usual, yet 
slept sufficiently during the night, and appears comfortable this morning. 
The parotid swelling is about the same, but is not painful. He took 
liquid nourishment by the mouth several times during the night as well 
as this morning. Pulse, 106; temperature, 98.8; respiration, 18. 

"12:30 p. M. — The President's condition continues about as at the 
morning bulletin, except that there is a slight rise of temperature. 
Pulse, 108; temperature, 99.4; respiration, 18. 

"6 : 30 p. M. — The President has vomited three times during the after- 
noon ; the administration of food by the mouth has, therefore, again been 
temporarily suspended and the nutritive enemata will be given more fre- 
quently. Pulse, 108; temperature, 99.2; respiration, 18." 

To these regular bulletins may well be added the foreign 
dispatch of Secretary Blaine, who, at a late hour, sent to Min- 
ister Lowell the following message : 

"Lowell, 3Ii.nister, London: 

"The President's sleep last night was broken and restless. His symp- 
toms throughout the day have been less favorable, and his general con- 
dition is not encouraging. He is unable to retain food on his stomach, 
having vomited twice during the afternoon, the last time at 5 o'clock. 
This evening he has been able to drink water and retain it. The swell- 
ing of the parotid gland has not increased. Pulse and temperature about 
the same as yesterday. His sleep up to this hour (11 p. M.) has been 
somewhat disturbed. We are all deeply anxious. 

"Blaine, Secretary." 

The fifty-second day. — The question was, how much longer 
the wheels of vexed and exhausted Nature could continue to 
revolve. Every power of life within the uncomplaining man 
was prostrated or dead. The inflammation in the gland had 
now progressed to a terrible extent, and an operation for its 
relief was already contemplated. That blood poisoning to 
some extent now existed, could hardly be controverted. Even 
■.he oversanguine Dr. Bliss was forced to admit it. In a con- 
38 ■ 



594 



LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 



versation of the day, and in reply to questions with regard to 
the inflamed gland, he said : " The glandular swelling is still 
hard, and shows no signs of subsiding. The swelling of the 
surrounding parts has pretty much disappeared. Whether 
suppuration will take place or not we can not yet tell. I am 
inclined to think it will. I do not, however, apprehend any 
serious consequences even in that case, provided we can main- 
tain the patient's strength. The pus which forms is likely to 
be of a healthy character, and we shall liberate it promptly 
by an incision. There has been no pain in the gland this 
afternoon, and it has caused the patient little annoyance." 

With regard to the septic taint in the blood, which was the 
predisposing cause of the glandular inflammation. Dr. Bliss 
said : " In cases of this kind, where the patient becomes en- 
feebled by long-continued fever and suppuration, there is 
always a low and impoverished state of the blood. It is, in- 
deed, a sort of mild blood poisoning, but it is very different 
from pyemia. Pyaemia is caused by absorption into the blood 
of the disunited elements of broken down pus. Small frag- 
ments of fibrine are carried into the circulation, and wherever 
such a fragment lodges in one of the minute blood-vessels it 
becomes a center of suppuration. The symptoms of pyaemia, 
such as the disorganization and peculiar odor of the pus, the 
yellowish tint of the skin, the odor of the breath and the in- 
creased temperature of the body, are all marked and unmis- 
takable, and none of them has at any time appeared in the 
President's case." 

Thus with vain conjectures and provisos did the distinguished 
surgeon attempt to keep up his own courage and that of the pub- 
lic. But it was now well known that, bulletins or no bulletins, 
the President, unless promptly relieved either by medical skill 
or some unexpected revival of nature, was down to the very door 
of death. The official reports of the day were as follows: 

"8:30 A. M. — The President has not vomited since yesterday after- 
noon, and this morning he has twice asked for and received a small 
quantity of fluid nourishment by the mouth. He slept more quietly 



SHOT DOWN.— PEOSPECTS IMPEOVING. 595 

during the night, and this morning his general condition is more encour- 
aging than when the last bulletin was issued. Pulse, 104; temperature, 
98.4 ; respiration, 18. 

"12:30 p. M. — The President has continued this morning to retain 
liquid nourishment taken by the mouth as well as by enema. There 
has been no recurrence of the vomiting and no nausea. Pulse, 104 ; 
temperature, 98.4; respiration, 18. 

"6:30 p. M. — The President has continued to take nourishment in 
small quantities at stated intervals during the entire day, and has had 
no return of nausea or vomiting. The nutrient enemata are also re- 
tained. Pulse, 110; temperature, 100.1; respiration, 19." 

^'^ ffiy-fhird day. — How is the President this morning? The 
President had made a gain. Of a certainty, he was not any further 
iu the shadow of the valley than on yesterday. He had taken in 
all, since the morning before, about thirty ounces of liquid food 
without disturbing his stomach. Several times he called for food 
himself. One of the physicians said during the day that the Presi- 
dent had taken more than sufficient food to repair the day's waste. 
At one time his pulse was down to ninety-six — the lowest point 
it had reached for more than a fortnight. Secretary Blaine — in 
whose dispatches the people had learned to place the highest re- 
liance — expressed himself somewhat more hopefully to Minister 
Lowell, in the night message, which read as follows : 

"Lowell, Minister, London: 

"The President's condition is more encouraging than it was at this 
time last night. During the last twenty-four hours he has swallowed 
ten ounces of extract of beef and eighteen ounces of milk, retaining and 
digesting both. He has twice asked for food, Avhich he has not done 
before for several days. Pulse and temperature are both somewhat 
lower. The swelling of the parotid gland has not specially changed. 
Its long continuance at the present stage increases the fear of suppura- 
tion. At this hour — 11 o'clock — the physicians report that the Presi- 
dent has rested quietly the entire evening, Blaixe, Secretary." 

Anxious concern about the President's condition on the part of 
the public was tempered with so much hopefulness that the evi- 



596 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. ' 

deuces of excitement somewhat abated. The street gatherings 
about the bulletin-boards in the principal cities were not so large 
as they had been, although the three official bulletins from the 
j)hysicians and Secretary Blaine's message to Minister Lowell were 
eagerly waited for and much talked of in public places. These 
bulletins were, in the usual form, as follows: 

"8:30 A. M. — The President slept the greater part of the night, but 
awoke at frequent intervals. He has taken since last evening a larger 
quantity of liquid food by the mouth than in the corresponding hours 
of any day during the past week. The use of nutrient enemata is 
continued at longer intervals. Pulse, 100 ; temperature, 98.4 ; respira- 
tion, 18. 

"12:30 p. M. — The President continues to take by the mouth and 
retain an increased quantity of liquid food. At the morning dressing 
the wound looked well and the pus was of a healthy character. The 
mucus accumulations in the back of the mouth are less viscid. At 
present his pulse is 104; temperature, 98.9; respiration, 18. 

" 6: 30 p. M. — The President has continued to take liquid food by the 
mouth at' regular intervals during the day, and has had no recurrence 
of gastric disorder. Pulse, 104; temperature, 99.2; respiration, 19." 

The fifty-fourth day. — The events of the day were two : First, 
the lancing of the inflamed gland — an operation but partially .suc- 
cessful in its results; secondly, a consultation of the surgeons in 
regard to removing the President from the White House. Dr. 
Agnew was summoned to the city by telegram. He was driven 
at once to the Executive Mansion, where the cabinet and medical 
council were in consultation, and remained closeted with them 
until nearly midnight. The consultation lasted rather more than 
an hour; and, so far as could be ascertained, it resulted in a dis- 
agreement. All of the participating surgeons who could be seen 
refused to talk upon the subject, as did also the members of the 
Cabinet, most of whom were at the White House until after eleven 
o'clock. 

A third circumstance of the day's history was the reported de- 
lirium of the President. This was for awhile concealed, and then 
palliated by those nearest the bedside. Colonel Rockwell, one of 



SHOT DOWN.— NOT GAINING. 597 

the attendants^ in conversation with a reporter, described the men- 
tal disturbance thus : " The President is sometimes a little incoher- 
ent for a moment after he awakes and before he fully gets control 
of his senses, just as any body would be in his weak and debili- 
tated condition and after seven weeks of fever; but at all other 
times his mind is as clear as ever." 

The dispatch of Secretary Blaine was very much less hopeful 
than the one of the night before. It read as follows : 

" Lowell, Mimster, London: 

"The President has not gained to-day. He has had a higher fever, 
which began earlier than is usual with his febrile rise. In the afternoon 
an incision was made in the swollen parotid gland by Dr. Hamilton. 
The flow of pus therefrom was small. The one favorable symptom of 
his swallowing liquid food with apparent relish and • digestion has con- 
tinued, but the general feeling up to midnight is one of increased anxiety. 

"Blaine, Secretary." 

To this might well be added the additional hopeful circumstance 
that during the day the President's assimilative powers appeared 
to be again in such condition as to warrant the physicians in dis- 
pensing with the system of artificial alimentation. The regular 
bulletins for the day were as follows: 

"8:30 A. M. — The President has passed a very good night, awaking 
at longer intervals than during several nights past. He continues to 
take liquid food by the mouth with more relish, and in such quantity 
that the enemata will be suspended for the present. No change has yet 
been observed in the parotid swelling. The other symptoms are quite as 
fiivorable as yesterday. Pulse, 100; temperature, 98.5; respiration, 17. 

"12:30 p. M. — The President continues to take liquid food by the 
mouth as reported in the last bulletin. His temperature has risen slightly 
since that time. In other respects his condition is about the same. 
Pulse, 104; temperature, 99.2 ; respiration, 17. 

"6:30 p. M. — Shortly after the noon bulletin was issued an incision 
was made into the swelling on the. right side of the President's face for 
the purpose of relieving the tension of the swollen parotid gland, and of 
giving vent to pus, a small quantity of which was evacuated. He has 
taken a larger quantity of liquid food by the mouth to-day than yester- 



598 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAKFIELD. 

day, and has been entirely free from nausea. Pulse, 108 ; temperature, 
100.7; respiration, 19." 

Th£ fifty-fifth day. — The first report of the morning indicated 
that there was no more than a bare possibility of President Gar- 
field's recovery. His condition was such as to cause the gravest 
appreliensions as to the immediate result. He continued to take 
food, but there was no perceptible increase in strength. His con- 
dition — with his wasted form, distorted and half-paralyzed face, 
dreadful wound, and suppurating gland — was pitiable in the last 
degree. Hallucinations came on, and he talked incoherently — 
now of his immediate surroundings, and now of his old home at 
Mentor. There was little remaining for the surgeons to do. Their 
effort for the time was directed chiefly to the alleviation of the in- 
flamed gland, which was now playing havoc with the few springs 
of vitality yet remaining as a source of hope. The whole gland 
was found to be infiltrated with pus, and the outlook, even for the 
night, was grave in the extreme. The physicians' bulletins, four 
in number to-day, were published, as usual, and presented to the 
anxious country several points of interest: 

" S: 30 A. M. — The President slept most of the night. He has taken 
liquid food by the mouth at stated intervals and in sufficient quantity, so 
that the eneniata have not been renewed. No modification of the parotid 
swelling has yet been observed. Pulse, 106; tem^Derature, 98.5; respi- 
ration, 18. 

" 9: 15 A. M. — ^The subject of the removal of the President from Wash- 
ington at the present time was earnestly considered by us last night and 
again this morning. After mature deliberation the conclusion was ar- 
rived at by the majority that it would not be prudent, although all agree 
that it will be very desirable at the earliest time at which his condition 
may warrant it. 

" 12: 30 p. M. — Since the issue of this morning's bulletin a rise in the 
President's temperature similar to that which occurred yesterday morn- 
ing has been observed. Pulse, 112; temperature, 99.2; respiration, 19. 

"6:30 p. M. — There has been little change in the President's condi- 
tion since the noon bulletin was issued. The frequency of his pulse \k 
now the same as then. His temperature has risen somewhat, but it i» 



SHOT DOWN.— FAILING EAPIDLY. 599 

not so high as yesterday evening. No unfavorable change has been ob- 
served in the condition of the wound. He has taken by the mouth a 
sufficient supply of liquid food. Pulse, 112; temperature, 99.8 ; res- 
piration, 19." 

The fifty-sixth day. — The morning papers were almost exclu- 
sively devoted to the President and the prospect of death. The 
great New York dailies presented page after page of dispatches, 
interviews, and discussions. The sum of it all was this: The 
President was alive, but, in all probability, on the verge of death. 
His pulse rose to a mere flutter. The abscess in the gland burst 
into the cavity of the car. His mind still wandered, but there 
Avas slightly less aberration than yesterday. Washington was a 
strange scene. There was suppressed excitement, but no noise. 
Little knots of people gathered in groups here and there before 
the bulletin-boards, where the latest intelligence was posted, while 
negro newsboys in their picturesque costumes cried their extras in 
the mellow Southern accent peculiar to their race. The intense 
August sun poured down his rays on the broad streets and as- 
phaltum boulevards. The trees were browned with the dust and 
heat, and the patches of grass here and there in the yards and 
parks were withered into hay. Above it all, gleaming white and 
silent, rose the great dome of the Capitol. Alas, what was it all 
to himf 

There was in the midst of infinite rumors and conjectures 
only a modicum of news. It was this: the President could still 
take food. His mind had cleared a little since yesterday. As 
for the rest, he lay helpless, ready to die. The bulletins said : 

"8:30 A. M.— The President slept most of the night, awaking at in- 
tervals of half an hour to an hour. On first awaking there was, as 
there has been for several nights past, some mental confusion, which dis- 
appeared Avhen he was fully roused, and occasionally he muttered in his 
sleep. These symptoms have abated this morning, as on previous days. 
His temperature is slightly above the normal and his pulse a little more 
frequent than yesterday morning. Pulse, 108; temperature, 99.1; res- 
piration, 17. 

"12:30 P. M. — His pulse and temperature are at present higher than 



600 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

at the corresponding hour for some days. He continues to take by the 
mouth the liquid food prescribed; nevertheless, we regard his condition 
as critical. Pulse, 118; temperature, 100; respiration, 18." 

"6:30 p. M. — The President's condition has not changed materially 
since the last bulletin was issued. He continues to take, by the mouth, 
the liquid food prescribed, and occasionally asks for it. Since yesterday 
forenoon, commencing at 11: 30 A. M., the enemata have again been given 
at regular intervals, as a means of administering stimulants, as well as 
nutrition. They are retained without trouble. Pulse, 116; temperature, 
99.9 ; respiration, 18." 

The jjfty-seventh day. — Another long clay of suspense. It was 
the peculiarity of President Garfield's illness that just as some 
great crisis came and his constitutional forces seemed to break 
hopelessly, at some other point there would be a rally. In this 
last case, when the distressing abscess in the parotid gland had 
added its aggravating horrors to horrors already accumulated, 
and just as tired nature seemed sinking to everlasting rest, there 
was a rally in the assimilative powers. Unexpectedly, the 
stomach began to perform its work; and thus the tree of life, 
shaken back and forth by conflicting forces, still rose feebly 
and stood. It was a melancholy sight to see this enfeebled and 
wasted life, so dear to the I^ation, still standing, with its glori- 
ous foliage torn away — withered, blighted, dying. 

The Queen on this day again expressed her great anxiety 
about the President. Her dispatch, and Mr. Blaine's answer, 

were as follows : 

" London, Aug. 27. 
"Blaine, Secretary, Washington: 

" I have just received from Her Majesty the Queen, at Balmoral, a tele- 
gram in these words : 'I am most deeply grieved at the sad news of the 
last few days, and would wish my deep sympathy to be conveyed to Mrs. 
Garfield.' Lowell, Minister." 

. " Washington, Aug. 27. 
"Lowell, Minister, London: 

" I have submitted to Mrs. Garfield your telegram conveying the kindly 
message from Her Majesty the Queen. Mrs. Garfield is constantly by 
her husband's bedside and does not give up all hope of his recovery. 



SHOT DOWN.-QUEEN VICTORIA'S SYMPATHY. 



601 



Her request is that you will return to the Queen her most sincere thanks, 
and express her heartfelt appreciation of the constant interest and tender 
sympathy shown by Her Majesty toward the President and his feniily in 
their deep grief and most painful suspense. Blaine, Secretary." 




BLAINE READING LETTERS OF SYMPATHY TO MRS. GARFIELD. 

The Americans, in a political point of view, do not like 
kings and queens; but it will be many a long year before 
the womanly greatness and tenderness of Victoria, manifested 
in our hour of sorrow, will be obliterated from the American 
heart. Vii-at semper Begina! 



602 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

The daily bulletins of the surgeons told all that could be 
known of the beloved President : 

"8:30 A. M. — The President slept from half an hour to an hour or 
more at a time throughout the night. He continues to retain the liquid 
food administered by the mouth and the stimulating enemata. Never- 
theless, his pulse has been more frequent since midnight and he is evi- 
dently feebler this morning than yesterday. Pulse, 120; temperature, 
98.4; respiration, 22. 

" 12 :30 p. M. — There has been no improvement in the President's con- 
dition since the last bulletin was issued. He continues to retain the liquid 
food administered by the mouth as well as the enemata. At present the 
pulse is 120; temperature, 99.6; respiration, 22. 

"6:30 p. M. — The President's symptoms show slight amelioration this 
afternoon. His pulse is somewhat less frequent and his temperature 
lower. The liquid food given by the mouth and the enemata continues to 
be retained. Pulse, 114; temperature, 98.9; resjiivation, 22." 

The fifty -eighth day. — The reports of the morning were briefer. 
They were also more encouraging. It was clear that the 
President, notwithstanding his desperate condition, had held his 
own for thirty-eight hours, and that there were some unmistaka- 
ble signs of improvement. It could not be said with truth that 
the change was great or marked, but there had been some 
amelioration. The shadow of death was lifted, at least for a 
day. The people, quick to run to extremes, gave a sigh of re- 
lief at the more cheering reports of the morning, and went 
whither they listed. It was said that the President had had 
another relapse and was now better again. Even the cautious 
Secretary of State was impressed with the belief that the Pres- 
ident's improvement was more than a temporary rally. In his 
foreign dispatch he summed up the case thus : 

" To Lowell, Minister, London: 

"Tlie condition of the President at 10 o'clock continues as favorable as 
could be expected. Within the past thirty hours his improvement has 
given great encouragement to the attending surgeons. He swallows an 
adequate supply of liquid food; the })arotid swelling discharges freely, 



SHOT DOWN.— A VALUABLE LESSON. 603 

and gives promise of marked improvement. His mind is perfectly clear. 
He has, perhaps, a little more fever than was anticipated, and his respi- 
ration is somewhat above normal. The general feeling is one of hope- 
fulness. Two or three days more of improvement will be needed to in- 
spire confidence. Blaine, Secretary." 

The monotonous official reports were telegraphed as usual, 
in the following messages : 

" 8 : 30 A. M. — The amelioration of the President's symptoms announced 
in last evening's bulletin continued during the night. Since midnight 
some further improvement has been observed, the pulse diminisliing in 
frequency. The stomach has continued to retain liquid nourishment ad- 
ministered, and last evening he asked for and ate a small quantity of 
milk toast. Stimulating and nutrient enemata continue to be retained. 
Pulse, 100; temperature, 98.4; respiration, 17. 

" 12: 30 p. M. — At the morning dressing of the President several yel- 
lowish points were observed just below the ear over the swollen parotid, 
and an incision being made, about a teaspoonful of healthy-looking pus 
escaped. Pulse, 104; temperature, 99.5 ; respiration, 18. 

"7:30 p. M. — The improvement in the President's condition, declared 
yesterday afternoon, is still maintained. He continues to take willingly 
the liquid food given by the mouth, and is apparently digesting it. The 
stimulants and nutrients given by enema are also retained. At the even- 
ing dressing an increased quantity of healthy-looking pus was discharged 
from the suppurating parotid. But little rise in temperature or pulse has 
taken place since noon. Pulse, 110; temperature, 99.7; respiration, 20." 

The ffty -ninth day. — More than eight weeks had now elapsed 
since the President was shot. The country had become used 
to alarms. It had also learned to make allowance for the 
shortcomings of newspaper reports, born of the heat of an 
oversanguine imagination. It had learned, too, the more val- 
uable lesson that the Government of the United States is not 
to be shaken from its pedestal by the bullet of an assassin. 
Guiteau was a fool. Perhaps the despicable Avretch thought 
the course of events, sweeping on like the planets, could be 
changed by the crack of a pistol. He might as well have fired 



604 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

into the air. The glorious institutions of the Republic will 
perish when Americans are no longer fit to be free; but until 
then the assassin's rage and frenzy is the most futile foUv ol 
the world. All the officers of the United States may be mur- 
dered in a day, but the Nation will stand immovable as ada- 
mant. Let the assassin foam and gnash upon the iron bars of 
the cage of fate! It is only a mad-dog gnawing his chain. 

The President, they said, was better. Thoughtful men doubted 
it. As a matter of foct, the judgment of the country had given him 
up to die. Sentiment still kejjt him alive; reason said that the 
time of the fatal foreclosure was near at hand. It could be said, 
truthfully, that the local symptoms traceable to the abscess in the 
President's face had measurably abated. It could also be said 
that he was still able to receive food enough to sustain life — noth- 
ing more. Mr. Blaine's dispatch for the evening was, however, 
rather hopeful than desponding. It said : 

" Departjiext of State, August 29, 10 : 30 p. m. 
"Lowell, 3Iinister, London: 

" At half-past ten to-niglit the general condition of the President is 
favorable. Late in the afternoon his pulse rose to 112 and his temi^er- 
ature to 100, both a little higher than the surgeons expected. Pulse has 
now fallen to 108, and fever is subsiding. The parotid swelling is stead- 
ily improving, and is at last dimiinshing in size. Apprehensions of seri- 
ous blood poisoning grow less every hour. Blaine, Secretary." 

These dispatches of the Secretary were generally but the pith of 
what the surgeojis said in their official reports. These, for August 
29th, were as follows : 

"8: 30 A. M. — The President's symptoms this morning are as favorable 
as yesterday at the same hour. He slept, awakening at intervals, the 
greater part of the night. At these intervals he took and retained the 
liquid nourishment administered. His mind continues perfectly clear. 
Pulse, 100; temperature, 98.5; respiration, 17. 12: 30 p. M. — Nothing 
new has been observed in the condition of the wound. The usual 
daily rise of temperature has not yet occurred, and the general condition 
has not materially changed since morning. Pulse, 106; temperature, 



SHOT DOWN.— BETTEK REPORTS. 



605 



98.6; respiration, 18. 6: 30 p. m. — The daily rise of the President's tem- 
perature began later this afternoon than yesterday, but rose eight-tenths 
of a degree higher. The frequency of his pulse is now the same as at 
this hour yesterday. He has taken willingly the liquid food prescribed 
during the day, and had, besides, during the morning, a small piece of 
milk toast. At the evening dressing a pretty free discharge of healthy 




MORNING GREETING BY MBS. GARFIELD AND MOLLIE. 

pus took place from the parotid swelling, which is perceptibly diminish- 
ing in size. The wound manifests no matei-ial change. Pulse, 110; tem- 
perature, 100.5; respiration, 18." 

TJie sixtieth day. — The President still held out. All the world 



606 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

knows the story, how, clay after day, owing to the native robust- 
ness and essential soundness of his constitution, he stood out 
against the death that awaited. As usual there were some who 
said he was better. Others said he was not. Once for all it 
may be said that such contradictions regarding the President's con- 
dition can easily be accounted for when the surroundings of the 
White House are considered. Only a few persons knew of their 
own observation how he appeared from day to day. Visitors 
were strictly, and necessarily, excluded from the sick-room. From 
the Tuesday after General Garfield was shot, not more than ten 
persons in all, excluding the physicians, had seen him, and, of these 
ten, some only once or twice. Mrs. Garfield and her children, 
Mr. Blaine, General D. G. Swaim, Colonel A. F. Rockwell, Dr. 
Boynton, Dr. Susan Edson, — one of the nurses, — the President's 
private secretary, Mr. J. S. Brown, and Mr. Pruden, completed 
the list. Mr. Blaine had seen him once, Mr. Pruden once, and 
Mr. Brown had been in five times, being usually called because 
the force of persons necessary to lift the President was a little 
short. Indeed, of all the strange impressions to be got from this 
novel event, there was none more peculiar than to stand in the 
private secretary's room in the second story of the White House, 
and feel that only a few yards away was the sick-room on which 
the eyes of the world were centered, and yet that not more than 
three persons besides the physicians, nurses, and family, have 
passed the door in two months ! It can thus be easily seen how 
correspondents and reporters were generally at sea, particularly 
when the physicians were reticent or out of sight. Mr. Blaine 
continued to express all that could be reasonably said of better 
prospects. His dispatch was as follows : 

" To Lowell, Minister, London : 

" The President, if not rapidly advancing, is at least holding his own. 
His fever is less than last night, and his swollen gland steadily improves. 
His pulse continues rather high, running this evening from 110 to 114. 
Perhaps the best indication in the case is, that the President himself feels 
better, and his mind, being now perfectly clear, he readily compares one 
day's progress with another. Blaine, Secretary." 



SHOT DOWN.— STILL BETTER 607 

The regular bulletins of the day were fuller if not more explicit : 

" 8: 30 A. M. — The President slept the greater part of the night, awak- 
ening at intervals, and retaining the liquid nourishment administered. 
His general condition this morning is about the same as at the same 
hour yesterday. Pulse, 102; temperature, 98.5; respiration, 18. 
12 : 30 p. M. — At the morning dressing another small incision was 
made in the lower part of the swelling on the right side of the President's 
face, which was followed by a free discharge of healthy-looking pus. A 
similar discharge took place through the openings. The swelling is per- 
ceptibly smaller, and looks better. The wound remains in an unchanged 
condition. Pulse, 116; temperature, 98.9; respiration, 18. 6:30 p. M. 
— The President has passed comfortably through the day. He has taken 
the usual amount of nourishment by the mouth, with stimulating enemata 
at stated periods. Pulse, 109 ; temperature, 99.5 ; respiration, 18." 

The sixty-first day. — In these stages of the President's illness 
neither the optimist nor the pessimist newspapers were to be 
trusted in their accounts of the sick man and his surroundings. 
Even the dry records of the surgeons' reports were so many bones 
of contention among the wranglers, some of whom would have the 
President well while others would have him dead. The optimists 
on this last day of August head-lined their reports : " On the high 
road to recovery ; " " StilL better ; " " Almost out of the woods," 
etc.; while the pessimist said: "The valley and the shadow;" 
" The end at hand/' etc. Unfortunately the pessimist — not from 
any virtue in himself — was the truer prophet. It could not be de- 
nied, however, that in some material points the President had im- 
proved with some steadiness for several days. These favorable 
points, rather than the dark ones, were dwelt on in the official re- 
ports, wdiich presented the summary of symptoms for the day : 

" 8 : 30 A. M. — The President has passed a tranquil night, and this 
morning his condition is quite as favorable as yesterday at the same hour. 
Pulse, 100; temperature, 98.4; respiration, 18. 12:30 p. m. — At the 
dressing of the President this morning the parotid swelling was found to 
be discharging freely. It looked well and has materially diminished in 
size. The wound remains in about the same state. His general condi- 
tion is evidently more favorable than at this hour yesterday. Pulse, 95 ; 



608 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

temperature, 98.4; respiration, 17. 6:30 p. m. — The President hag 
passed a better day than for some time past. He has taken his food with 
increased relish, and the usual afternoon rise of temperature did not occur. 
Pulse, 109; temperature, 98.6; respiration, 18." 

The sixty-second day. — The fall month dawned with little ad- 
ditional news. The little that was presented was not good. 
The luxuriance of the scribes who had written up and written 
down almost every circumstance and symptom were about 
this time dipt of some of their superfluity. The public had 
grown stern and angered at being trifled with on so grave a 
matter as the condition of a dying President. A few manu- 
factured conversations were still published, but the amount 
of space so devoted in the journals of the day showed a 
pronounced shrinkage. Mr. Blaine's dispatches, always hon- 
est and sincere, were more than hitherto sought after as giv- 
ing the hungry and heart-sore people the most authentic in- 
formation concerning their stricken Chief Magistrate. The 
Secretary's telegram for the evening was as follows: 

"7^ Lowell, Miimter, London: 

"The President continues to do well iu his eating and digestion, and 
the swollen gland steadily improves, but in the past twenty-four hours 
he has made no substantial progress in his general condition. In the 
judgment of his physicians, however, he still holds the gi'ound gained 
on Sunday and Monday last. His pulse and temperature to-day have 
shown marked increase over the record of yesterday. The weather 
has been exceedingly warm and sultry, and this may account in part 
for the adverse changes noted. Even in the September climate of 
Washington such an oppressive day as this has been is rare. 

" Blaine, Secretary." 

The views of the surgeons were presented as usual in their 
official bulletins: 

" 8 : 30 A. M. — Toward nine o'clock last evening the President had 
some feverishness, and his pulse ranged from 108 to 116. He had on 
the whole a good night, and his condition is fully as favorable as yes- 
terday at the same hour. Pulse, 100; temperature, 98.4; respiration, 



SHOT DOWN.— FURTHER IMPROVEMENT. 609 

17. 12:30 r. m. — At the morning dressing of the President the ab- 
scess of the parotid uas found to be discharging freely. It looks well 
and continues to diminish in size. The state of the wound remains 
the same. His general condition is not materially different from what 
it was at this hour yesterday. Pulse, 108; temperature, 98; respira- 
tion, 18. 6 : 30 p. M. — The condition of the President has not materi- 
ally changed since the last bulletin, except that there has been a mod- 
erate rise of temperature this afternoon. The President has had no 
rigors for several weeks. Pulse, 108; temperature, 99.4; respiration, 
18." 

The sixty-third day. — It was said, in tlie dispatches of the 
morning, that the President had still further improved, and 
that he was now better than at any time since the setting in 
of the parotid inflammation. Perhaps he was. There was 
no doubt that for some days he had held his own. The 
question of the day, however, was the revival of the project 
to remove the sufferer from Washington. This proposition 
had been previously voted down in a consultation . of the 
physicians and the members of the cabinet. But since then 
things were changed. Doubtless the surgeons were now con- 
vinced that, remaining where he was, the President must in- 
evitably die in a very short time. To this should also be 
added, the persistent entreaties of General Garfield himself, 
who never forbore, on proper occasions, to urge upon those 
who were in responsible charge of his case, his earnest wish 
to be taken away from the scenes of his glory and grief. 
By the 2d of September it was understood that the minds of 
the physicians were about made up to attempt the hazardous 
enterprise. It was known also that the Pennsylvania Railway 
had already prepared a special train with a view to readiness 
in case the removal should be finally decided on. The train 
even now stood in readiness. 

A publication in the London Lancet, for the current week, 
was perused with great interest by thousands of professional 
and unprofessional readers. Some encouragement was gleaned 
from the excerpt, which was as follows; 
39 



610 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

" We do uot think the bealiug of President Garfield's wound will 
be promoted by probing to learn how far granulation has proceeded. 
The most favorable signs are the fall of temperature to the normal, 
and the frequency of the pulse. This is a thoroughly safe criterion 
of increased strength and the subsidence of blood poisoning; and, to- 
gether with the improved power of digestion, ability to sleep soundly, 
mental clearness and cheerfulness, aftbrds solid grounds for the hope 
of recovery. 

"The case is a striking illustration of the power of a good constitu- 
tion to hold up against illness that would certainly have killed a fee- 
bler person; but another failure in the President's digestive powers, or 
symptoms of blood poisoning, might at any time turn the balance 
against hira ; and what we have hitherto insisted upon so often we are 
bound to repeat, that President Garfield will not be out of danger until 
the wound is healed." 

The usual bulletins, from the surgeons in charge, were pub- 
lished thus : 

"8:30 A. M. — The President slept well during the night, and this 
morning his condition is in all respects as favorable as yesterday at the 
same hour. Pulse, 100; temperature, 1)8,4; respiration, 17. 12:30 p. 
M. — ^The President's condition has not materially changed since the 
morning bulletin was issued. Pulse, 108; temperature, 98.4; respira- 
tion, 18. 6:30 p. M. — ^The President has pnssed a comfortable day, and 
this evening appears better than for some days past. This evening his 
pulse is 104; temperature, 99.2; respiration, 18," 

The sixty-fourth day. — The removal of the President was 
fully determined on. The surgeons were unanimous that it 
should be undertaken. Long Branch was settled upon as the 
resort to which the wounded man should be removed. The 
physicians were unanimous in their selection of this place, 
and all necessary precautions were taken to insure the Presi- 
dent's comfort during his removal. It was a perilous busi- 
ness, and for the remaining days of the sojourn at the "White 
House the energies of those who were responsible for the 
President's well-being were constantly engaged in making 
suitable arrangements for the removal. The account of the 



SHOT DOWN.— PEEPARING TO MOVE. 611 

President's progress for the day, notwithstanding his critical 
condition, was almost overlooked in the keen interest imme- 
diately excited by the project now imminent. The surgeons 
themselves were unusually brief in their oilicial reports, which 
ran thus: 

"8:30 A. M. — The President was somewhat more restless than usual 
during the early part of the night, but slept better after one A. M. 
There is a slight increase in the frequency of the pulse. Pulse, 104; 
temperature, 98.6 ; respiration, 18. 12 : 30 p. M. — The President's con- 
dition has not materially changed since the morning bulletin was issued. 
Pulse, 104; temperature, 98.4; respiration, 18. 6:30 P. M. — The Presi- 
dent has done well during the day, and has taken with some relish a 
sufficient quantity of nutriment. Altogether, his general condition ex- 
hibits some improvement over yesterday. Pulse, 102; temperature, 
99.6; respiration, 18." 

The sixty-fifth day. — The President himself was somewhat 
excited about his removal. In some respects this excitement 
was beneficial and in others hurtful to him. His spirits and 
hopes were in some measure aroused, and a stimulus thus 
aitbrded to his exhausted powers. But the energy thus awak- 
ened was withdrawn from the long enfeebled stomach, and 
twice during the day his food was rejected. Otherwise, there 
'vvere no alarming symptoms for the passing hour, and so 
public attention was wholly turned to the preparation. Pres- 
ident Roberts, of the Pennsylvania Railroad, commissioned 
George C. Wilkins, general superintendent of the Baltimore 
and Potomac Railroad, to take direction of the train which 
was to carry the President away. Mr. Wilkins w^as also di- 
rected to issue orders to his men, which would enable him 
to stop every freight and passenger train that might be On the 
road between Baltimore and Washington on half an hour's 
notice, and to give the special train the right of way at any 
hour of the day or night. On the 4th of September, Mr. 
Wilkins accordingly issued orders to carry out the following 
arrangement : When the day and hour of departure of the 



612 LIFE OF JAMES K GARFIELD. 

train is known, ho sliou'ld bo informed, and a message wouT,d 
be sent along the entire road, stopping all freight trains that 
might be on the road. Passenger conductors would at each 
station receive an order either to stop or proceed to the next 
station, where the subsequent movements of their trains must 
1)0 governed by the orders there awaiting them. In this way, 
which is, in fact, the " blocking " system in force on many 
roads, the movements of all trains would be controlled from 
the Union Depot, and they would be so handled as to give 
the special train the right of way and at the same time pre- 
vent the " regulars " while in motion from passing the special. 
This was done to prevent the President being disturbed by 
any jarring or disagreeable noise. 

No stops were to be made at any of the stations between 
Baltimore and Washington ; but should it be necessary to rest 
the nerves of the patient, the special train was to be halted 
in the open country, where fresh air and the absence of noise 
and crowds would be insured. Immediately on hearing of 
the appointed hour, Mr. Wilkins was to leave Baltimore for 
Washington in a special car, and come over to Baltimore with 
the President's train. This train was to be run around the 
city to Bayview, where William Crawford was to take charge 
of it and convey it to Philadelphia. His arrangements were 
like those of Mr. Wilkins. An engine of the New York di- 
vision of the Pennsylvania iK)ad, and two Pullman palace cars, 
which were in part to compose the train, arrived at Baltimore 
on the 4th, and became subject to the orders of Colonel 
Wilkins whenever needed. 

The reports of the surgeons contained about the only au- 
thentic account of the President's condition during the day. 
These were as follows: 

•' 8: 30 A. M. — The President vomited once last evening and once about 
an hour after midnight. Notwithstanding this disturbance, he slept well 
most of the night, and this morning has taken food by tlie mouth Avith- 
out nausea, and has retained it. His pulse is somewhat more frequent, 
but in other respects his condition "s about the same as at this hour yes- 



SHOT DOWN.— TEACK LAYING. 613 

terday. Pulse, 108; temperature, 98.4; respiration, 18. 12:30 p. m.— 
The President's condition has not changed materially since the last bul- 
letin was issued, and there has been no further gastric disturbance. 
Pulse, 106; temperature, 98.4; respiration, 18. 6:30 p. m. — The Presi- 
dent has passed a comfortable day. He has taken his food with some 
relish, and had no return of the irritability of stomach reported in the 
morning's bulletin. The parotid swelling continues to improve. The 
wound shows no material change. The rise of temperature this after- 
noon has been very slight, but his pulse was more frequent, and he 
showed more fatigue after the dressings. Pulse, 110; temperature, 99; 
respiration, 18." 

The sixty-sixth day. — It is the last day in "Washington! 
Again the President is almost forgotten in the bnstle of prep- 
aration. Mr. Francklyn, owner of one of the finest cottages 
at Elberon, Long Branch, has tendered it as a home for the 
wounded Chief Magistrate, and Colonel Rockwell has accepted 
the offer with thanks. So it is thither we are going on the 
last of our earthly pilgrimages. Every thing is ready for the 
departure, and it is set for to-morrow morning at six. A 
retinue of strong men has been appointed to carry the Pres- 
ident down stairs to a wagon specially arranged to convey 
him to the depot. The day is hot; the air like a furnace. 
Down at Elberon there is a weird scene to-night. Three 
hundred skilled engineers and workmen — a loyal company 
of sturdy patriots — are laying a temporary track to connect 
the main line with the cottages on the beach. To perform 
this work laborers have been gathered together; a supply 
of tics and rails lie waiting the strong hands that are to 
fling them into place. The length of the new track is 
3,200 feet. It is to be laid directly to the hotel grounds, 
describing a curve to the very door of Francklyn cottage, 
from whose windows we shall once more look upon the sea. 
Crowds of men and women, gathered from the various liotels, 
stand witnessing the scene. Anon the clouds gather. Head- 
lights are put in place to furnish illumination. At intervals 
the workmen are served with refreshments from the Elberon. 



C14 



LIFE OF JAMF^ A. GARFIELD. 



All night long the work goes hravely on, and ere the dawn 
of morning the track is completed over which the suffering 
President is to take his last journey in the land of tlie living. 




LAYING A Sl'KClAL RAILUOAI) TltACK Tu FliANXKLYN CDTTAUE. 

And now, while the shadows steal across the landscape iii 
this sultry Septemher evening, let ns once more stand hefore 
these now familial* bulletin boards and read : 



SHOT DOWN.— READY TO GO. 615 

"8:30 A. M. — The President was somewhat restless during the early 
part of the night, but slept well after midnight. He has taken by the 
mouth and retained the nutriment prescribed. This morning his pulse 
is less frequent Ihan yesterday. Pulse, 102; temjjerature, 99.5; respira- 
tion, 18. 12:30 p. M. — Pulse, 114; temperature, 99.5; respiration, 18. 
6:30 p. M. — No material change has taken place in the condition of the 
President since morning. The parotid abscess continues to improve, aud 
the wound remains about the same. Pulse, 108; temperature, 99.8; 
respiration, 18. Should no untoward symptoms prevent, it is hoped to 
move the President to Long Branch to-morrow." 

And here is the faithful Mr. Blaine's dispatch to Minister 
Lowell, in London : 

"To Lowell, Minister, Lojidon: 

"This has been the hottest day of the season, and the heat has told 
upon the President, His pulse and temperature have been higher than 
for several days past. In other respects there has been no special 
change, either favorable or adverse. It is expected that he will be re- 
moved to Long Branch to-morrow. It is hoped that the sea air will 
strengthen him. Blaine, Secretary." 

Can the journey be made with safety? The morrow will 
tell the tale. Here in the twilight of that last day in Wash- 
ington, as the hum of preparation settles to a calm, and as 
our eyes turn toward him w^hom we have followed so long in 
his heroic struggle, doubting yet hoping, we may well say with 
the Loudon Punch : 

So fit to die! With courage calm 

Armed to confront the threatening dart. 
Better than skill is such high heart 

And helpfuller than healing balm. 

So fit to live! "With power cool 
Equipped to fill his function great, 
To crush the knaves who shame the State, 

Place-seeking pests of honest rule. 

Ekiual to either fate he '11 prove. 

May Heaven's high will incline the scale. 

The way our prayers would fain avail 
To weight it — to long life and love! 



616 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAKFIELD. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

GAZING ON THE SEA. 

Despite the prayers and tears and earnest pleading, 

And piteous protest o'er a hero's fall, 
Despite the liopeful signs our hearts misleading, 
Death cometh after all! 

Over the brightest scenes are clouds descending ; 

The flame soars highest ere its deepest fall ; 
The glorious day has all too swift an ending: 
Night cometh after all ! 

O'er bloom or beauty now in our possession 

Is seen the shadow of the funeral pall; 
Though Love and Life make tearful intercession, ^ 

Death cometh after all ! — Harper's Weekly. 

THE finger of hope pointed unmistakably in the direction 
of Long Branch, and as the morning of September 6th 
dawned upon the White House, all conditions appeared favorable 
for the removal of the beloved President beyond the malarial in- 
fluences of the Capital. Preparations for this event were complete. 
The anxiety of the President to leave Washington had been im- 
parted to all his friends and attendants. Even the physicians 
were convinced that nothing would bring relief to the sufferer so 
eifectively as the pure, bracing salt breezes of the Atlantic, and 
their opinion increased the confidence and animated the hope of 
the country. 

The condition of the President seemed peculiarly favorable for 
the journey. He had eaten well on the previous day, and retained 
his food. He had slept peacefully, and his wound was doing well. 
The parotid swelling had almost disappeared, and the general con- 
ditions were thought to be remarkably good. It was even said 
that a considerable increase of strength was manifest in his move- 



GAZING ON THE SEA.— LEAVING THE WHITE HOUSE. 617 

ments, but this was evidently a mistake. The excitement of the 
occasion for the time overcame his weakness. 

All necessary arrangements for the journey were completed on 
the 5th. They were elaborate and well-developed. For the spe- 
cial railroad train the plan detailed in the previous chapter ^yas 
adopted and successfully carried out. During the entire evening 
of the 5th, trunks, boxes, and a great variety of packages, were 
sent from the White House to the depot for shipment. Messen- 
gers were constantly arriving and departing, workmen were busy 
in special labor connected with various devices for the comfort of 
the President, and every thing indicated the eve of a great event. 
The crowd around the bulletin-board, at the front gate, was largely 
increased, and many held their positions there during the weary 
watches of the whole night. Every passer-in or out, who was sup- 
posed to have information regarding the wounded man, was eagerly 
besought to impart it. In reply to a question. Colonel Corbin said 
to a reporter that the trip could not hurt the President, " because," 
he added, "he has been traveling all day." By this. Colonel 
Corbin meant that the President had been talking and thinking 
all day about the trip. This anxiety had characterized the Presi- 
dent's moods for some weeks, and it was therefore believed that 
the realization of his long-cherished desire would have a salutary 
effect upon his weakened system. 

At a few minutes past five, on the morning of the 6th, several 
carriages were grouped on the drive in front of the White House, 
and near the main entrance stood an Adams Express wagon, of the 
largest size, covered, and furnished with side and end curtains. It 
was near 6 o'clock when quite a commotion became apparent in the 
Executive Mansion, and a moment later the President, lying upon 
a stretcher, was borne carefully and slowly to the express wagon, 
which had previously been connected with the stone steps of the 
White House by a wooden platform. It was arranged to permit 
the men to walk directly into the wagon, where they let the bed 
down slowly until it rested firmly upon its sup])orts. Then the 
immediate attendants of the President ranged themselves around 
him, three on each side. At the head of the bed, on the right, sat 



618 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

Dr. Boyntou, next was General Swaim, and at the foot was O. E. 
Rockwell. On the left were Colonel Rockwell, Dr. Bliss, and Dr. 
Reyburn, the other physicians having gone on before. The horses 
were attached, and at once the little procession was in motion, led 
by Private Secretary Brown, in his buggy. 

As the President's van passed out through the gate, the eyes of 
the invalid were closed, and that part of his face which could be 
seen looked pinched and pallid with suffering. In his general 
contour, there was something to suggest the face of Garfield to 
those who had known him long and intimately; but the change 
was astounding to every one unaccustomed to the daily observa- 
tion of its progress. Perhaps it was not the face of a dying man, 
but many observers thought it was. There was something intensely 
pitiful and tear-compelling in the wasted features, and quiet, pas- 
sive manner of the Nation's chief executive, and he was thus driven 
away from his official home, with all the apparent chances largely 
against his return. 

The van was but fairly outside the gate when the horses were 
nrged to a lively walk, which occasionally increased to a slow trot, 
the pedestrians meantime keeping well up on the pavements. 
Three policemen walked on either side the wagon to keep the street 
clear ; but there was no attempt at crowding. There was no bois- 
terousness; no unseemly haste to be first; no loud talking. All 
passion was hushed. The agony of the great soul now going forth 
to find health for its encasement, subdued and quieted every thing 
within range of its influence. At one point the President recog- 
nized an acquaintance on the street, and slowly lifting his hand, 
waved a feeble salutation and farewell. At precisely six o'clock 
this sad procession drove alongside the car, specially fitted up for 
the martyred Chief Magistrate, the horses were detached, and 
twenty strong and willing hands backed the wagon to the opening 
in the car. Then the attendants lifted the stretcher and entered 
the car with its precious burden. The President was carefully 
adjusted upon his new bed, the foundation of which was a mattress 
of extraordinary thickness, and so constructed that the motion of 
the train could not be felt, a few farewells were said, and then the 



GAZING OBT THE SEA.— THE LIGHTNING TRAIN. 619 

train moved slowly and smoothly away. Away, with fond hearts 
full of hope, but soon to be surcharged with dismay and griefl 

This seven hours' journey of 233 miles is now historical, and 
its principal features are full of interest. The train came to a stop 
in a few minutes after leaving the Washington depot, to permit an 
approaching train to move out of the way on a siding. " What 
does this mean ?" inquired the President. " Only a momentary 
detention," replied Colonel Rocl^vell. " But important events are 
ofttimes the issue of a moment," rejoined the suiferer. This is the 
only conversation he joined in during the trip. The train soon 
proceeded, gradually increasing its speed where the track was 
straight enough to permit, to fifty-five miles an hour, and for a few 
miles after leaving Philadelphia, it actually attained a speed of 
sixty miles an hour. The President was watched very closely 
during the first hour of the journey, in order to detect any symp- 
tom of danger from the excitement of the occasion. To the relief 
and great satisfaction of the physicians, he seemed actually to 
enjoy the ride and to be improving. His pulse, which reached 
118 early in the morning, fell to 110 and then to 108. He did 
not talk. His voice was too feeble to make his words distinguish- 
able amid the noise of the running train, without too much eifort. 
He occasionally inquired the hour, and once or twice desired to 
know the names of stopping places. Beef-tea was the sole nutri- 
ment given him during the journey, and on two occasions he 
relished it like a hungry man. 

At every one of the forty-six cities and towns and villages, 
through which the train passed, great crowds thronged the streets. 
They stood silently, with uncovered heads and eyes wet with tears. 
The grief of the people was too deep for other demonstration. 
Words could not express it, and weeping came unbidden. Strong 
men, rough men, weak men and cultivated men; women of all 
grades and classes, and even little children, joined in their 
silent anguish with each other and the world, and poured their 
lamentation from streaming eyes. In many places, crowds of 
workingmen left their mills and forges as the train approached, 
and, ranging themselves alongside the track in an orderly line, 



620 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

stood with hats in hands and heads bowed till it passed beyond 
range of their vision. Then they solemnly returned to their 
vocations. There was a feeling of awe beyond expression in the 
mind of every spectator, and to some extent it entered every 
thinking mind in the land. Life and death were in fierce conflict 
upon that lightning train, and the madness of its speed looked 
like an effort to distance the subtle foe of mortality; but it was 
only in appearance. Death had long before marked our noble 
President for his own, with the bullet of the assassin. More than 
sixty days before the date which identifies this chapter with cur- 
rent history, he was as surely slain at Washington as was Richard 
III. at Bosworth, in 1485. Such was, in large measure, the feeling 
of the people. The dark foreboding of calamity began to over- 
shadow them when the foul work of Guiteau's pistol was flashed 
over the land on that fatal second of July, and now their hearts 
were sick with the President's wounds. They felt with him the 
pain, and, without his hopefulness, saw the beloved head of the 
Nation approaching the last dread extremity, with faith undimmed 
and bravery undaunted. 

It was a time for weeping and anguish and silence. And a 
time for thought. For severe self-examination. For national 
inquiry. A time to find out for what new crime atonement is 
required, in such measure as impoverishes all that is noble, and 
all that is above reproach in our poor world ! Do we ever explore 
the logic of crime until forced to the task? And the lesson of 
Lincoln's martyrdom — how was that learned? Had it been re- 
membered, would there have been occasion for this later sacrifice 
upon the altar of political acrimony? 

The lightning train sped onward. A pilot engine preceded it, 
and its passage was a signal to all approaching trains to get out 
of the way and remain silent until the convoy had passed. Trains 
upon side-tracks, wherever they were encountered, were crowded 
with people, all desirous of obtaining a glimpse of the President, 
but not obtrusive nor demonstrative beyond the overwhelming 
influence of great sorrow. Their silence was more expressive than 
language. It indicated the deepest sym})athy, the profoundest 



GAZING ON THE SEA.— ELBERON. 621 

inspect, the heartiest love. On three or four occasions the poor 
sufferer waved his hand feebly to the people, but the effort was 
painful. The journey was devoid of incident beyond what has 
been related. The train arrived at Elberon at three minutes past 
1 o'clock, and the transfer of the President from the car to his 
quarters at Francklyn Cottage was promptly made, without trouble 
or disturbance. His room had been elegantly prepared for his 
occupancy, and it was made pleasant with many beautiful bouquets 
and rare plants sent by personal friends. The physicians pro- 
nounced the arrangements perfect, and could suggest no improve- 
ment. They stated that the journey had done the patient no harm, 
although in the official bulletin, issued at 6 : 30 p. m. on the day 
of arrival at Long Branch, they announced his pulse at 124; tem- 
perature, 101.6; respiration, 18, — a condition not calculated to 
reassure the country. 

Prayers had been offered during the day in thousands of churches, 
and by millions of people in their homes and places of business, for 
the restoration of the President. Faith in the efficacy ©f prayer 
seemed to be almost universal, and it is thought that thousands 
upon thousands of people who had never prayed before, made 
Garfield the subject of their supplications at the throne of God. 
At a concert of prayer held at the Thirteenth Street Presbyterian 
Church in New York City, which was largely jlttended by Chris- 
tians of all denominations, the following extract from a letter 
written by the President's pastor in W*ashington, Rev. Frederick 
D. Power, was read : 

"His life is before the world, a living epistle, to be known and read 
of all men. To you I may say he has had the ever-present Comforter, 
the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, during all these weary days 
and nights of suffering. He remembers the Lord's day when it comes ; 
on Sunday morning last, as he opened his eyes to its holy light, he said; 
' Tliis is the Lord's day ; I have great reverence for it.' He takes great 
comfort in prayer. Knowing that my little churcli was continuing daily 
in prayer to God for him, he said : ' The dear little church on Vermont 
Avenue ! They have been carrying me as a great burden so long, but 
when I get up they shall have no cause to regret it.' 



622 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

"Of his own peril of death he has been mindful, and over and over 
again has said: ' I must be prepared for either.' This has been the prin- 
ciple of his life, ruling in all his experience, as he explained it to me: 
• When I meet the duties of each day as best I can, I cheerfully await 
whatever result may come.' When he was first stricken he declared: 
' I believe in God, and trust myself in his hands,' and there he is, ray 
brethren, and God will keep him, and God will glorify His own great 
name, whether it be in his life or his death. I could say many things, 
but my heart and hands are both too full. He is better to-day, but still 
on the borderland. We are all still besieging the mercy-seat, and we 
expect God's answer with great anxiety, but not, I trust, without great 
faith and submission. 

" In conclusion, I may say in the words of President Garfield to me, 
in a season of like distress— the death of his little son : * In the hope of 
the Gospel, which is so precious in this afiliction,' I am affectionately your 
brother in Christ." 

The subjoined copies of dispatches are selected from several 
hundred of a similar tenor, as indicative of the general solicitude : 

Executive Chamber, Albany, Sept. 6, 1881. 

For the purpose of enabling the people to unite with those of other States in 
petitioning the Ruler of the Universe for the restoration to health of the President 
of the United States, the 8th day of September, instant, I hereby set apart and 
designate as a day of fasting and prayer. It is recommended that all ordinary 
avocations be suspended, and the people, in their usual places of worship, humbly 
acknowledge their faults and reverently supplicate the -mercy of the Heavenly 
Father that the national peril, which now appears so imminent, may be averted. 
Let the prayers of all be united for the early and complete recovery of the Presi- 
dent's health and strength. May the blessing of Almighty God rest upon the 
stricken suft'erer and the afflicted family. 

Given under my hand and seal at "the Capitol in the City of Albany, this 6th 
day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and eighty- 
one. ' • Alonzo B. Coknell. 

By the Governor— Henry E. Abell. 

The meeting for prayer in behalf of the President was largely attended. From 
twenty to twenty-five prayers were offered by clergymen and laymen, which were 
remarkable for their earnestness and importunity. The bulletins announcing the 
departure of the President from the White House and the progress of the train 
were read at the opening and close of the meeting. 

Philadelphia, Sept. 6. — In accordance with the proclamation of the Gov- 
ernor, the churches of the city were generally thrown open, between the hours of 
10 and 12 this morning, for worship for the recovery of President Garfield. At 
Harrisburg business was entirely suspended from 10 o'clock until noon. Services 
•were held in the churches and in various industrial establishments. The dis- 



GAZING ON THE SEA.— THE NATION'S PKAYER. 623 

patches relative to the President's journey were read from a number of pulpits. 
In most other places in the State services Avere held and business was suspended 
during the hours named. 

Cincinnati, Sept. 6. — The proclamation of Governor Foster was observed by 
meetings for prayer in the Christian churches, and a union meeting was also 
held in the First Presbyterian Church from 10 to 12 o'clock. The public schools 
were dismissed. The Mayor's office and all the Government offices were closed, and 
deep interest was felt in regard to the result of the President's journey from 
Washington to Long Branch. At the Republican County Convention prayer was 
oflTered by Dr. Kumler, who made a most fervent petition for the recovery of the 
President. After the prayer, on motion, the convention gave three cheers for 
the President. The convention also adopted a resolution condemning the at- 
tempted assassination, and extending sympathy to Mrs. Garfield. 

Columbus, Ohio, Sept. 6.— Religious services were held in several of the churches 
here from 10 to 12 o'clock to-day, and many prayers were oflered for the recov- 
ery of the President. The bulletin-boards' wore eagerly watched by anxious 
crowds, and each dispatch telling of the favorable progress in the Presidential 
journey from- Washington to Long Branch was joyfully discussed. The feeling 
that the President will recover seems to permeate all classes, and nothing but 
hopeful expressions were heard to-day. 

Chicago, Sept. (5. — The church services and union meetings to-day for the pur- 
pose of invoking Divine aid for the President's restoration to health, were well 
attended and fervently participated in. Business was generally suspended in the 
public offices, business boards, etc. The announcement of the easy trip of the 
President to Long Branch and his improved condition, is the subject of great re- 
joicing to thousands who eagerly inquire for accounts of his progress. 

Atlanta, Ga., Sept. 6. — In respon.se to the Governor's proclamation, the Hall 
of Representatives here was filled to-day with the members of the General Assembly 
and citizens, to offer up prayers for the recovery of President Garfield. Relig- 
ious services were held, and addresses and prayers were made by leading min- 
isters of the city. 

Wilmington, N. C, Sept. 6. — To-day was very generally observed liere as one 
of prayer for the recovery of the President. Services were held in all She churches 
in accordance with the proclamation of the Governor, and between 10 and 12 o'clock, 
the hours devoted to religious services, business was almost entirely suspended. A 
feature of the day which attracted some attention was the fact that nearly all the 
bar-rooms were closed. 

Raleigh, N. C, Sept. 6. — In accordance with the Governor's pi-oclamation, to- 
day was generally observed here as a day of prayer for the President. Federal and 
State buildings and offices of manufacturers, etc., were closed. Impressive services 
were held at the churches. 

Augusta, Ga., Sept. 6. — The day of prayer was very generally observed here. 
The Mayor issued a proclamation, and all the public offices, banks and many stores 
were closed. Services were held in the churches, and prayers offered for the resto- 
ration of the President to health. Some pastors mentioned that the wounding of 
the President had the effect of cementing the sections together as one people. 

San Francisco, Sept. 6. — A special service of prayer for the recovery of the Presi- 
dent was held this morning in the hall of the Young Men's Christian Associatioii. 
The Ministerial Union was present in a body. Every seat in the hall was occupied, 
and crowds were forced to stand. 

Indianapolis, Sept. 6. — Religious services were held, in obedience to the Gov- 



624 LIFE OF JAMES A, GAKFIELD. 

ernor's proclamation, in a number of the leading churches to-day, and praters 
were offered in behalf of the President. Many of the business houses were closed 
from 10 to 12 o'clock. 

Cleveland, O., Sept. 6.— Business was generally suspended throughout North- 
ern Ohio between 10 o'clock and noon to-day, while people of all denominations: 
gathered in their houses of worship, in town and country, and joined in prayer for 
the restoration of President Garfield to health. 

TJie sixty-eighth day. — On the following day, the 7th of Sep- 
tember, there was still no positive change in the President's 
condition. The early morning dispatches announced : " He is 
no worse than when he left Washington, neither is he any 
better." 

Such a statement was, of course, quite unsatisfactory to the 
country, because, the people argued, " no better " always means 
" worse." There is no neutral ground in a case of this kind. The 
morning bulletin found the pulse at 106 ; temperature, 98.4 ; res- 
piration, 18. In the evening the pulse was 108; temperature, 101; 
respiration, 18. The day was very warm, the thermometer rang- 
ing from 90° to 100°, and the people were remarkably anxious 
over the reports of the physicians. When it was learned that after 
the issue of the evening bulletin, the pulse ran up to 114, there 
was wide-spread apprehension. The gentle sea-breezes, from which 
so much was expected, were not doing their appointed work. For 
most of the day there was a dead calm of the atmosphere at Long 
Branch, and the temperature was described as almost unbearable 
by people in health. To the sufferer it was wonderfully oppressive, 
and there were apprehensions that, unless change of temperature 
in an abatement of the furnace-like heat soon came, there would 
be reason to conclude that the journey of Tuesday was in -vain. 
Every body complained but the President. He proved himself the 
most patient of invalids, and but once during the entire day made 
a remark which indicated any thing like discontent with the situa- 
tion. Opening his eyes from a short nap, he turned them toward 
the windows and said to an attendant, who was fanning him : "Oh, 
those windows are so small." For a few moments he breathed 
laboriously, and his pulse increased to a high rate, and the reaction 
caused unusual weakness. 



GAZIXG ON THE SEA.—" CONVALESCEXCE." 625 

Throughout the day the bulletin-boards at the varioQS news- 
paper offices, and places of public resort in every part of the 
country, were besieged by large crowds of anxious men and women 
of every grade in the social scale, eager for the smallest scrap of 
information to sustain the earnest prayer of their hearts — that the 
revered President was now upon the sure course of recovery ; but 
all the facts reported by the physicians pointed to a calamitous 
result. Only their comments were encouraging, and whatever of 
encouragement- they conveyed was not accepted by the mind of 
science. It was seen that the President's bravery had imparted a 
strange degree of assurance to his immediate attendants, whose 
reports w^ere unconsciously colored by the mental force rather than 
the physical condition of the suiferer; and thus at least nine-tenths 
of his fellow-countrymen were buoyed up with hopes which had 
no foundation be3-ond the tenacity of a gigantic will. 

The dxty-ninth day. — So wonderful was the exercise of the Pres- 
ident's mental Ibrce that on Thursday two of his medical attend- 
ants announced his convalescence! Surgeon-General Barnes, 
Surgeon J. J. Woodward and Dr. Robert Reybnrn had been 
relieved from duty at Garfield's bedside on the previous day, at 
the wish of the President, as he expressed it, " to relieve them of 
labor and responsibility which, in his improved condition, he could 
no longer properly impose upon them." Drs. Bliss and Hamilton 
remained in their professional capacity, and Dr. Boynton, Mrs. 
Garfield's physician, in the capacity of nurse. Between nine and 
ten o'clock, on the morning of the eighth, a newspaper correspon- 
dent said to Dr. Bliss: 

"Doctor, you seem to be feeling pretty well this morning." 
"I should think I was; why, the man is convalescent; his j^ulse is 
now down to ninety-six." 

This announcement was astounding, but as the correspondent was en- 
deavoring to settle in his own mind whetlier the doctor Avas not a little 
delirious himself, as a result of long watching and continued nervous 
tension, he turned to some persons who approached, and was soon assert- 
ing to them with emphasis, "This is convalescence." The good news 
40 



626 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

traveled with marvelous speed. "Dr. Bliss says the President is con- 
valescent," was soon on every lip, but was received with incredulity. 

"We had better wait awhile before we toss up our hats," was the 
comment of a member of the Cabinet. 

As the day wore on, confirmation from every trustworthy source was 
obtained of the good tidings from the sick-room. Before noon Dr. Bliss 
and Dr. Hamilton appeared together on the veranda, and Dr. Bliss re- 
peated his belief that the President was convalescent. " That is good 
news," said a gentleman to Dr. Hamilton. " Yes," was the reply, "and 
it is true." Dr. Boynton came out of the President's cottage about noon 
and strolled toward the edge of the bluff, with his hands behind him 
and with a far-away look in his eyes, which were turned to the east, 
whence the rising breeze was coming and the increasing waves were 
rolling up on the beach at his feet. 

"Doctor, this is a fortunate change." 

"Yes; the President is better." 

" You are, of course, hopeful, as all the rest are?" 

" Yes, the change is not enough to base any medical statement of 
improvement upon, but what there is is in the right direction." 

Colonel Rockwell Avas more emphatic. " Dr. Bliss says the President 
is convalescent. "What do you think ?" asked a correspondent. 

" Yes," said the Colonel, "Dr. Bliss thinks so. The doctor said to the 
President this morning, in my presence: 'Mr. President, you are con- 
valescent; you are getting out of the woods.' He is certainly doing very 
well and we shall have him propped up before many days. "We 
have sent to-day for his reclining chair. It is one of those chairs 
which you can make any thing of, from an upright chair to a bed, and 
is softly cushioned. With a few days more of improvement, we will 
have him up where we can roll him to the windows." 

"And out upon the lawn, too, I presume, after a time?" 

" Well, perhaps." 

"And you will, doubtless, take him to Mentor before many weeks?" 

" Yes, probably he wants to get liome, but he enjoys this place very 
well. We turned him on his side this morning, so that he could look 
out over the ocean, and he was very much pleased. He longed to get 
here. Two or three days before Ave started, I remember a queer remark 
he made. I said to him, 'Mr. President, how would you like to have 
us put you on the Tallapoosa and get you down to the salt Avater?' ' That 



GAZING OX THE SEA.— HIGH HOPES. 627 

Avould bo temporary, tentative and unsettled/ he said; 'put me on the 
cars and take me to Long Branch.'" 

" Does he read the pajoers?" 

"No; but he could. Yesterday I read to him a number of dispatches 
we had just received. Here is one of them now." The Colonel drew 
from his pocket a telegram, which he read as folloAVs : 

" PiTTSFiELD, Mass., September 7. 
" To President Garfield, Long Braneh : 

"The Garfield and Arthur Club, of Pittsfield, and people of the town, without 
regard to party lines, in Berkshire County, to whose hospitalities you were coming 
when so brutally assailed, and where thousand.s of Berkshire hearts were waiting 
to welcome you, all unite in congratulations on your safe arrival at the sea-shore. 
All hope for your speedy recovery, and to-day the shire town suspends business to 
meet and ask the Great Healer to be with you and make efficacious the efforts of 
your earthly physicians. Officers and Members 

of the Garfield and Arthur Club, and many othei-s." 

" The President," continued Colonel Rockwell, " was greatly pleased 
by the kind expressions in the telegram, and bade me telegraph his 
thanks." 

Dr. Hamilton, in conversation with Dr. Pancoast, spoke very 
encouragingly of the prospects, saying, in cifcct, that he had the 
strongest hopes of recovery. Celebrations and thanksgivings to 
signalize the joy of the people, were freely discussed. The ap- 
parent change for the better caused a rebound in popular senti- 
ment, which was quite disproportioned to its cause. Alas ! it had 
no foundation whatever. 

At 8:30 in the morning the President's pulse indicated 104; 
temperature, 98.7; respiration, 18. At 6:30, evening, pulse 
100; temperature, 99.1; respiration, 18. Dr. Bliss declared 
most emphatically that the favorable symptoms w^ould continue. 
At 10:30 p. M, Secretary Blaine cabled this hopeful message: 

" Lowell, Minister, London: 

" Tlie President's rest was much broken during the first half of last 
night, but to-day his condition has been more favorable. He had less 
fever this afternoon than for several days past; has better pulse and im- 
proved appetite. His surgeons are much encouraged. His comfort has 
been promoted by a decided change in the weather. Thermometer at 
this hour (10:30) 75° Fahrenheit; yesterday it was 95°." 



628 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

In many of the States, in response to the proclamations of 
their Governors, the people gathered at their places of worship 
and offered prayer for the recovery of the Chief Magistrate. 
In many cities business was almost wholly suspended for this 
service, and there was hearty supplication every-where for the 
Divine blessing upon the languishing President. Faith in 
p]'ayer seemed to have become universal, and certainly the sen- 
timents which accompanied this faith are an honor to human- 
ity and a solace to the world. 

The seveiifidh day. — Septeialjcr 9th was regarded as "a favor- 
ble day," and the rapid convalescence of the Presidoiit Avas con- 
fidently announced. The cool atmosphere seemed to invigorate 
him, and his appetite was fair. The physicians announced a de- 
cided improvement, but the morning bulletin did not create a 
sanguine feeling in non-professional minds, and the more cautious 
were scarcely satisfied with the symptoms, but preferred to 
await further developments before resting in the belief that the 
favorable change would not be interrupted by some unforeseen 
complication. Xaturally, the immediate attendants upon the 
President exhibited a more decided o[>inion that the improvement 
was likely to be permanent, than did persons not so intimately 
connected with the case. Assurance from those having access 
to the patient's room, that he was much better than before leav- 
ing AYashington, was very generally and gratefull}- accepted. 

At 8: 30 A. M. his pulse was 100; temperature, 98.5; respira- 
tion, 17. At noon there was scarcely a notable change. At 
6 P. M., pulse, 100; temperature, 98.8; respiration, 18. At 10 
P.M. Secretary Blaine cabled the subjoined dispatch: 

"Lowell, MlnHer, London: 

"The medical reports are all favorable to-day — morning, noon, and night. 
The Pre.-ident has not for many weeks done so well for so many consecntive 
liours. He has had very little fever ; his respiration has been normal, and 
liis pulse has not exceeded 100. He slept without opiates, and gained 
strength without stimulants. His nights are not so restful as could be de- 
sired ; but in the twenty-four hours he gets sufficient sleep. The weather, 
though not excessively warn), continues sultry and oppressive. Much is 



GAZING OX THE SEA.— DELUSIVE HOPES. 629 

lioped from the clear, bracing air Avhicli may be expected here at this 
season." 

On the same evening, Attorney-General MacVeagli expressed 
his views in these words: "At present everything looks llnor- 
able, and of course we hope that what has been gained will be 
maintained and added to, but the difficulty is, the President's 
blood is in an unhealthy condition, and until he recuperates 
sufficiently to overcome any bad effects of blood-poisoning, it is 
not safe to be sanguine." He thought, furthermore, that the 
President would convalesce in ten days. This was the 9th of 
September. Of course he could not foresee the 19th, and we 
must not anticipate that memorable date. 

The secmty-first daij. — Satnrdiiy, September 10th, was ushered 
in with favorable omens. It was pronounced " a satisfactory 
^ay" by Dr. Bliss. He expressed the opinion that the wound 
was healing from the bottom. The temperature was one degree 
higher than on the previous day, and this was the only change 
noted in the bulletins. But there was an undercurrent of ap- 
prehension more significant than any thing which appeared in 
print. The people had learned from an unofficial and unauthori- 
tative source that the President was worse, and that Ijlood- 
poisoning had shown itself in very alarming symptoms. Un- 
fortunately, this information was true. At 8 : 30 a. m. the pulse 
was 104; temperature, 99.4 ; respiration, 18. At noon, pulse, 
100; temperature, 98.5; respiration, 18. At 5:30 p. m., pulse, 
100; temperature, 98.7; respiration, 18. Secretary Blaine ca- 
bled as follows, at 10 p. m, : 

"Lowell, Mimder, London: 

"After dispatch of last night the President had considerable increase of 
fever. Indeed, a rise of pulse and temperature every night has become 
a significant feature in his case. Tlirough the day, and especially 
this afternoon, he has grown more comfortable. A cold easterly storm 
has prevailed since early morning without evil effect thus far on his con- 
dition. Secretary Windom had a brief interview with the President at 
noon. He found him much reduced in strength, but clear m his mind. 



630 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAKFIELD. 

He a<ked the Secretary about the success of the refunding of the public 
debt." 

The seventij-second day. — A day of anxiety. The President 
was unmistakably worse. It was ascertained that a portion 
of the matter discharged from the mouth was not pus froni 
the parotid gland, as had been supposed, but pus from a badly 
diseased lung. The situation was regarded as critical, and es- 
pecially so when the patient's cough returned with considera- 
ble violence. At 8:30 p. m. his pulse was 104; temperature, 
98.8; respiration, 19. At noon, pulse, 110; temperature, 100; 
respiration, 20. At 5:30 p. m., pulse, 110; temperature, 100.6 ; 
respiration, 20. Tne increase in respiration was attributed to 
the affection of the lungs. At 10:30 P. M. Secretary Blaine ca- 
bled the following report : 

" Lowell, Mxaister, London : 

"The President had an increase offerer last night and "was very restless 
until 5 o'clock a. m. During the day he has been somewhat better, but 
his pulse, temperature, and respiration have been higher for the entire twen- 
ty-four hours than on any preceding day since he reached Long Branch. 
His other symptoms are not reassuring, and his general condition gives 
rise to anxiety." 

The seventy-third day. — Monday was pronounced "favorable." 
A decided improvement in the President's symptoms was re- 
ported by the attending physicians, who pronounced the anxi- 
ety of the previous day "a senseless panic." The lung diffi- 
culty was spoken of as of little importance now that it was 
understood, except by Dr. Boyntou, who contended very 
strongly that it was an effect of blood-poisoning. Yet he 
thought the President's vitality sufficient to overcome any seri- 
ous results from it, provided no further complication of a similar 
nature occurred. 'At 8:30 a. m. his pulse was 100; tempera- 
ture, 98.4; respiration, 18. At noon, pulse, 106; temperature, 
99.2 ; respiration, 20. At 5 : 30 p. m., pulse, 100 ; temperature, 
98.6; respiration, 18. At 2: 30 p. m. the following message was 
cabled by Secretary Blaine : 



GAZING ON THE SEA.— IN THE EASY CHAIE. 631 

"Lowell, Minister, London: 

"The President slept well last night, and his condition to-day is more 
comfortable and more favorable. During my absence for a short time Dr. 
Agnew or Dr. Hamilton will send you a daily report." 

At 10 p. M. Attoruey-General MacYeagh sent, by cable, the 
following dispatch: 

"Lowell, Minuter, London: 

" In the absence of Mr. Blaine, the attending physicians have requested 
me to inform you of the President's condition. He has during the day 
eaten sufficient food with relish, and has enjoyed at intervals refreshing 
sleep. His wound and the incisions made by the surgeons all look better. 
The parotid gland has ceased suppuration, and may be considered as sub- 
stantially well. He has exhibited more than his usual cheerfulness of 
spirits. His temperature and respiration are now normal, and his pulse 
is less frequent and firmer than at the same hour last evening. Not- 
withstanding these favorable symptoms, the condition of the lower part 
of the right lung will continue to be a source rf anxiety for some days 
to come." 

The sei-e)if>/'fourfh (Iny. — Tuesday. September 13th, was for the 
most part uneventful, except that at 11 a.m. he was placed in a 
semi-recumbent position upon an easy chair, in which position 
he remained half an hour without fatigue or discomfort. In 
reply to a question by Dr. Bliss, President Garheld said he ex- 
perienced no pain and did not even feel tired. At 8 : 30 a. m. 
the pulse was 100; temperature, 99.4; respiration. 20. At noon, 
pulse. 100 ; temperature, 98.8 ; respiration, 20. At 5 : 30 p. 3i. 
pulse, 100; temperature. 98.4; respiration, 20. A favorable 
report was cabled by Attorney-General MacYeagh to Minister 
Lowell. 

The sevcniy-fijth day. — " Still gaining slowly," was the morn- 
ing report. It was announced that the patient suffered from a 
septic infection of the blood, but this was not believed to be 
very serious. Dr. Boynton was the only physician who expressed 
much anxiety about it, and his views were invariablv soothed by 
the belief that the President's robust constitution would eventuallv 



632 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAKFIELD. 

conquer all his physical comj^lications. At 8 : 30 A. M. the pulse 
was 100; temperature, 98.4; respiration, 19. At noon, pulse 104; 
temperature, 98.8; respiration, 20. At 5:30 p. m., pulse 112; tem- 
perature, 99.2; respiration, 21. The bulletins looked sufficiently 
unfavorable, but the physicians viewed them with complaisance. 
Dr. Boyntou, however, informed a reporter that the pulse frequently 
reached 120, but this fact was kept from the family and the public. 
At 10 o'clock Attorney-General MacVeagh reported as follows: 

" Lowell, 3Iinister, Lotidon: 

" There is an increase this evening in the President's temperature, 
pulse, and respiration; but it is so slight as not necessarily to indicate 
that the condition of the blood is producing any new complications. 
The trouble in the right lung is not increasing, and is causing him less 
annoyance. He has taken adequate nourishment, and his sleep has 
been natural and refreshing; so that, if he has gained nothing, he has 
probably lost nothing during the day." 

Tlie seventy-sixth day. — " Slight progress toward recovery " wa:t 
reported. The surgeons concluded not to admit that the septic 
condition of the patient's blood amounted to pyaemia, and they 
expressed confidence that the difficulty would be overcome. The 
President took food in variety, but not with a strong appetite. 
In the early morning hours he was quite wakeful, and gave way 
to fits of despondency. In one of these he called aloud to an at- 
tendant: "Save me; don't let me sink." Words of encourage- 
ment were uttered, but for a time he could not Ijring himself to 
believe that he yet had hope of recovery. " I fear bringing me 
here will prove but a roaring farce after all," said he. He was 
not readily reassured, and the incident was not regarded as favora- 
ble. Still the physicians and newspaper correspondents sent out 
fair reports to the country, and the people were therefore quite 
unprepared for the events so near at hand. At 8 : 30 A. m. the 
jmlse was 100; temperature, 98.4; respiration, 20. At noon, pulse 
102; temperature, 98.9; respiration, 21. At 5:30 p. m., pulse 104; 
temperature, 99.2; respiration, 21. Attorney-General MacVeagh 
reported to Minister Lowell that al] the symptoms were substan- 



GAZING ON THE SEA.-SINKING. 633 

tidily the same as on the previous day, except that the expectora- 
tion from the right lung was rather less difficult and less profuse. 
The seventy -seventh day. — A day of " unfavorable symptoms." 
Great anxiety was experienced by the immediate friends of the 
honored sulfcrer, and the physicians acknowledged the gravity of 
the occasion. His physical weakness had never before been so 
apparent, and his utter exhaustion seemed ominous of the end. 
Those who had never before questioned his ability to rally, now 
began to doubt it; and, when it was found that the pulse fre- 
quently reached 130 beats, intelligent men and women were struck 
with wonder at the persistent vitality of the man. At 8 : 30 a. m. 
the pulse was 104; temperature, 98.6; respiration, 21. At noon, 
pulse 116; temperature, 99.8; respiration, 21. At 5:30 p. m., 
pulse 104; temperature, 98.6; respiration, 22. Attorney-General 
MacVeagh cabled as follows: 

"Lowell, Minuter, London: 

"There has been no very marked change in the President's condition, 
hut it is not at this hour reassuring. The different symptoms are almost 
nil slightly aggravated. The temperature and the pulse have fluctuated 
more than usual, and the respiration is rather more frequent, while the 
character of the discharges continues to be unsatisfactory. There is, 
therefore, a sensible increase of anxiety." 

The seventy-eighth day. — "A day of deep anxiety." The Pres- 
ident was worse. He was sinking beyond reach of the strong 
arm of science and the willing hands of love, never to be re- 
claimed by earthly agencies. A chill, continuing half an hour, 
was followed by perspiration and a rapid rise of temperature. The 
situation was alarming, although the immediate effects of the chill 
did not appear as serious as might have been expected, — for the 
pulse fell, in a few hours, from 120 to 102, the temperature from 
102 to 98, and the respiration from 24 to 18. These were phe- 
nomenal changes. Yet the word " rigor," as translated in the 
medical vocabulary, is invested with nameless terrors, and the 
condition of the patient was assumed, on all sides, to be precari- 
ous in the extreme. The attending physicians were startled, but 



634 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

they did not fail to predict another rally, and a decided improve- 
ment in a few days. They did not seem to realize that the crisis 
was upon them, and the country certainly did not. The Attorney- 
General cabled to Minister Lowell that " the situation is now prob- 
ably more grave and critical than at any time heretofore." 

The seventy-ninth day. — Sunday was marked by an increase of 
fear and anxiety. Another chill, but of shorter duration, was one 
of the untoward incidents of the day. Dr. Bliss declared that the 
frequent recurrence of chills would soon wear out the President's 
life, but he hoped to devise some means to prevent them. Dur- 
ing this last attack the President's pulse reached 134, possibly 140. 
Dr. Boynton had some clear ideas regarding the case. On Sun- 
day night he said: 

"The President's condition to-day, compared with yesterday, shows a 
slight improvement." 

" Do you not think the low pulse and temperature of last night and 
tliis morning were favorable indications?" 

" I do not. The low pulse and temperature, the sound sleep, and the 
freedom from cough and expectoration were indications of a very low 
state of vitality, and can not he considered as favorable symptoms. If 
he grows stronger, there will be a rise in the pulse and temperature, and 
his cough and expectoration will return." 

"Is it true that you stated last night that the President's condition 
was hopeless ? " 

" No, sir. I said his case was extremely critical, but not hopeless." 

" What is your opinion to-night?" 

" The same as last night. For several weeks he has at times made 
satisfactory progress, but, in each instance, the improvement has been 
followed by a relapse, which left him on a lower plane of vitality than 
before. This feature of his case is peculiar to most cases of chronic 
pyemia. The President has a wonderful constitution, but it is doubt- 
ful if it is sufficient to carry him on to recovery," 

This conversation is interesting from the fact that it shows the 
very correct logic of one of the President's most intimate atten- 
dants only twenty-four hours preceding the final catastrophe. Dr. 
Bliss was slightly more confident than Dr. Boynton. No points 



GAZING ON THE SEA.— SEPTEMBER ISth. 635 

are given from the physicians' bulletins, for the reason that it was 
thought best on Sunday to suppress some of the more unfavorable 
indications, and the bulletins are therefore not history. At 10 
p. M., Attorney-General MacVeagh cabled the following: 

"Lowell, Minister, London: 

"The President passed a comparatively quiet and comfortable day, but 
this evening he had another chill of less duration than that of yesterday, 
but sufficient to increase the very great anxiety already existing. He 
has also been slowly growing weaker, and his present condition excites 
the gravest apprehensions." 

The last day. — Monday, September 19, brought the final eclipse 
of hope. It is not easy to describe it in these pages in such way 
as will do full justice to the subject for the American people; 
because, ^rs^, its facts are so incredible as to appear quite outside 
the range of history ; and, second, the people, the great masses, can 
not yet understand how their beloved President could be so foully 
murdered without the swift annihilation of the murderer. The 
human mind does not always remember that the methods of jus- 
tice must be quite distinct and M-holly dissimilar from those of 
crime, and that the cause of law and order is promoted by this 
distinction. And possibly it will never be taught to remember this 
lesson invariably. 

Upon this fateful Monday morning, the President was prostrated 
by a severe chill, called " rigor " by the physicians. It pt-oved to 
be weakening beyond precedent. During its continuance, the pulse 
ran up to 143, and for a long time remained above 140. It de- 
creased gradually in the afternoon, and when it was found that 
there was no recurrence of the chill in the evening, the promise 
of a restful night was thought to be good. The physicians were 
not agreed as to the responsible cause of the patient's crisis. Dr. 
Boynton lost his hopeful tone early in the day, but Dr. Bliss re- 
mained comparatively sanguine till the last moment. No one im- 
mediately connected with the case anticipated the death of the 
sufferer, however, for several days yet, and it was remarked that 
even Mrs. Garfield, although greatly fatigued, was by no means 







ISIz? 



'im 



GAZING ON THE SEA.— A STARTLED NATION. 



637 



despondeut. She could not realize that death Avas even then rob- 
bing her of her heart's dearest treasure. 

The President rested quietly during the afternoon, and it was 
found that he had rallied from the effect of the chill in a manner 
to surprise the 
physicians. His 
mind was bright, 
the dressing of 
the wound did not 
fatigue him, and 
after it was over 
he asked for a 
hand-glass, taking 
which he examin- 
ed his face and 
said he could not 
understand how 
he should be so 
weak when he 
looked so bright. 
This was at 6 p. m. 
Dr. Bliss remark- 
ed, that after such 
a rallying there 
was hope, but the 
trouble was want 
of strength. Af- 
ter the closest ex- 
amination, the surgeons said it was possible for the patient to live 
a week, even granting that present conditions were to carry him 
ofp. Drs. Bliss, Agnew, and Hamilton, all concurred in .this view, 
and it was sent out to the country in the dispatches of the asso- 
ciated press. Although such a message was designed to be paci- 
fying, people every-where were startled. It was a virtual conces- 
sion that all hope of recovery had been abandoned, and that the 




GENERAL D. G. SWAIM. 



638 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

clouds of death were already lowering. But there was something 
infinitely more startling to come shortly. 

At 10 P. M., while the President was asleep, General Swaim no- 
ticed that his limbs were cold. To warm them, he procured a 
flannel cloth, heated it at the fire ai.d laid it over the knees. He 
heated another cloth and laid it over the President's right hand, 
and then sat down beside the bed. The sad occurrences of the 
night are thus related in General Swaim's words : 

*' I was hardly seated when Dr. Boynton came in and felt the Presi- 
dent's pulse. I asked him how it seemed to him. He replied : ' It is not 
as stroDg as it was this afternoon, but very good.' I said: ' He seems to 
be doing well.' 'Yes,' he answered, and passed out. He was not in the 
room more than two minutes. 

"Shortly after this the President awoke. As he turned his head on 
awakening, I arose and took hold of his hand. I was on the left hand 
side of the bed as he lay. I remarked : ' You have had a nice comfort- 
able sleep.' 

"He then said, *0 Swaim, this terrible pain,' placing his right hand 
on his breast about over the region of the heart. I asked him if I could 
do any thing for him. He said, ' Some water.' I went to the other side 
of the room and poured about an ounce and a half of Poland water into 
a glass and gave it to him to drink. He took the glass in his hand, I 
raising his head as usual, and drank the water very naturally. I then 
handed the glass to the colored man, Daniel, who came in during the 
time I was getting the water. Afterward I took a napkin and wiped his 
forehead, as he usually perspired on awaking. He then said, 'O Swaim, 
this terrible pain — press your hand on it.' I laid my hand on his chest. 
He then threw both hands up to the sides and about on a line with his 
head, and exclaimed: 'O Swaim, can't you stop this:' And again, 'O 
Swaim ! ' 

" I then saw him looking at me with a staring expression. I asked 
him if he was suffering much pain. Receiving no answer, I repeated the 
question, with like result. I then concluded that he was either dying 
or was having a severe spasm, and called to Daniel, who was at the door, 
to tell Dr. Bliss and Mrs. Garfield to come immediately, and glanced at 
the small clock hanging on the chandelier nearly over the foot of his bed 
and saw that it was ten minutes past 10 o'clock. Dr. Bliss came in within 



GAZING ON THE SEA.— LAST SCENE OF ALL. 639 

two or three minutes. I told Daniel to bring the light. A lighted candle 
habitually sat behind a screen near the door. When the light shone full on 
the President's face I saw that he was dying. When Dr. Bliss came in a mo- 
ment after, I said : ' Doctor, have you any stimulants? he seems to be dying.' 
He took hold of the President's wrist, as if feeling for his pulse, and said : 
* Yes, he is dying.' I then said to Daniel : ' Run and arouse the house.' 
At that moment Colonel Rockwell came in, when Dr. Bliss said : ' Let 
us rub his limbs,' which we did. In a very few moments Mrs. Gai-field 
came in, and said : ' What does this mean ? ' and a moment after exclaimed : 
•Oh, why am I made to suffer this cruel wrong?' At 10:30 p. M. the 
sacrifice was complete. He breathed his last calmly and peaceably." 

The great President was dead! It could not be realized at the 
moment, and yet within the ten minutes succeeding his demise the 
bells in a hundred cities were tolling his solemn knoll. Long be- 
fore the morning light of the 20th illumined the earth, the hearts 
of millions throughout the world were heavy with the tidings. 

Dead ! whispered the wires with lightning haste. Dead ! clanged 
the bells, with their brazen tongues. Dead! was echoed around 
the world, from lip to lip, until the mournful chorus resounded in 
a wail of heart-piercing agony. Dead ! dead ! dead ! exclaimed all 
the people. But not so. Garfield will live forever in the better 
thoughts of those who loved him, and who are made better for 
having loved him. The brave heart, the open hand, the great 
soul, generous and true — these will bless the world for evermore! 
Garfield is deathless. 

" No man was better prepared for death," remarked a prominent 
member of his Cabinet. " No, sir, nor for life, which requires in- 
finitely superior preparation," may be safely responded. The life 
which he lived required the practice of all the virtues ; the cruci- 
fixion of all the vices; bravery of the severest type; gentleness, 
trust, and clear-cut integrity. Practice had perfected in him these 
rules of life, and for many years he had furnished an example of 
purity and probity for his fellow-men. This is not taken away with 
the removal of the body. It can not be taken away. The pages 
of history will be brightened with it as long as eminent worth re- 
mains the goal of human ambition. 



640 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

His removal has chastened and sweetened the national life. 
The hearts of all men, from every party, have been drawn together 
in a common brotherhood, and the country to a man denounces 
and resents " the deep damnation of his taking off." Every differ- 
ence is annihilated in the presence of the universal bereavement. 
His death forced a cry of grief from the pained heart of every man 
and woman in Christendom who loves good deeds, and reveres the 
example of an honest life : who admires the power to withstand 
trial, to bear suffering, and to confront danger ; who reveres those 
that possess the courage of their convictions, however resisted by 
menace and scorn. No mourning was ever before so universal, so 
heartfelt, so spontaneous, so lasting. Every consideration of busi- 
ness, of pleasure, of political preferment, of social enjoyment, of 
speculation, of whatsoever men and women were engaged in, gave 
way at once to the general lamentation. These things were most 
observable in our own land, but in some measure they prevailed 
in every civilized country, and extended even to the isles of the 
sea. His had been a precious life to his own people for many years. 
It has become precious to all the world's millions now, and will 
remain so through all the ages. 

He proved himself a hero many times and on many trying oc- 
casions before his eighty days of heroic endurance of the assassin's 
stroke ; but never was there a brighter example of Christian for- 
titude and uncompromising submission than that furnished by him 
during those eighty days. And never was there any thing more 
heroic and queenly than the devotion of his noble wife from the 
beginning to the close of this eventful period. Where is there a 
grander picture of womanhood than Mrs. Garfield? The history 
of neither ancient n(ir modern times furnishes its superior. What 
was position to her, with its pride and circumstance, when placed 
in the balance with love and duty? Elevated to the place of the 
most envied woman in the land — the leader of society at the Na- 
tional Capital — she practiced that grand simplicity which made her 
the fit companion for the eminently practical and busy President 
while in health, and, when overtaken by his great calamity, nursed 
him day and night with unceasing devotion. What example could 



GAZING ON THE SEA.— THE HEROIC WIFE. 641 

be more admirable than this for the women of the present age? 
Well may great qnecns acknowledge this true woman their peer, 
and treat her as a sister. 

For the two weeks at Long Branch, and probably for other 
weeks at Washington, he was kept alive by the indomitable 
power of his own will and the gentle care of those who loved 
him better than life. The "little woman" to whom he sent 
his love before the first shock of his w^ound had subsided, was 
the prominent object in his heart of hearts, and well has she 
proved her title to the place she occupied there. Well did she 
remember her vow to love, honor, and cherish, in sickness and in 
health, till death. With what faithfulness, M'ith what untiring 
devotion and pathetic zeal was that vow kept; and how holy must 
be the associations which now cluster around every act and every 
aspiration of the womanly faith and love which animated the noble 
wife in her hour of trial. History furnishes no more prominent 
example of devoted affection, forgetfulness of self, sacrifice of all 
comfort, carelessness of every thing except the poor sufferer upon 
the bed of pain. He was her only object in life. And to him, 
she was the bright star of destiny, the ever-present angel of hope, 
the trusty sentinel upon the ramparts of eternity, who menaced 
and kept at bay the arch-efiemy, death. Her fliith and hope and 
love were the medicaments which sustained him through all those 
weary days, when the services of physicians became as naught in 
the process of healing. No one could perform for him the tender 
offices of nursing so well as she ; no voice so sweet as hers ; no hand 
so gentle nor so ready to anticipate his wants. In those other years, 
when they toiled together for the mental, moral, and material ad- 
vancement of themselves and their children, and knew little of the 
gay world, he learned this ; and now, when they had reached the 
summit of the loftiest earthly ambition, and she, by right as well as 
courtesy, was acknowledged the first lady in the land, he still found 
her the same faithful nurse, with the old devotion to her wifely duty 
which makes the true woman an angel of mercy, and of more worth 
in the chamber of sickness than any physician. She never left him in 
all those weary days of pain, and she it was who, on many occasions. 



642 



LIFE OF JA]\IES A. GAKFIELD. 



brought him back to consciousness and life by tender care, when 
it seemed to others that the slender thread which bound him to 
earth wns too weak loiter to hold. 




OOK Af THE SFA 



Her loving devotion under these conditions was the subject of 
daily encomiums ; and even the medical attendants were unanimous 
in according her the first praise for attentions which were more 
important to the patient than any they could render. Without her 
soothing ministrations, it is thought the life of the President would 
iiave been much abridged ; and when it is remembered that this toil 
was constant, day by day, without intermission, except a few hours 



GAZING ON THE SEA.— A SOEROWFUL PICTURE. 643 

for sleep, wholly self-abnegating, and to the exclusion of all 
thoughts for he;* own health or comfort, she may well be cited as 
one of the noblest examples of true wifehood in any age or coun- 
try. The ancients were filled with admiration at the devotion of 
Penelope to Ulysses. How weak and tame is the example when 
compared with that which now causes American womanhood to be 
60 lovingly reverenced ! 

That is indeed a sorrowful picture where the President, from 
his room at Elberon, takes his last view of the sea. Those calm 
eyes surveyed the mighty waters, whose lashings are regular as the 
movement of the pendulum, with sensations which will never 
be known, for he was wholly absorbed in meditation. Once 
or twice he turned to the faithful wife with a smile upon his at- 
tenuated features, but nothing referring to the scene or the sit- 
uation was said by either. With his hand locked in hers, they 
communed in spirit, conscious of the presence of God in His 
works and in His mercy. The anxiety of the people for the great 
President was not shared by himself, except as his sympathies were 
now, as always, with the people; but who shall describe the agony 
of the poor wife as she noted the weakness, daily increasing, of the 
noble form upon which, for so many joyous years, she had leaned 
for support ? Who shall depict her anguish as she now realized 
that the sea breezes, which had brought so much health for oth- 
ers, could bring none to her languishing husband? Whatever 
may have been the hopes of the country, there were no hopes of 
recovery in this sick chamber now, — only prayers, and possibly 
something like a dream of a miracle — yearned for, but impossible. 
What picture can be more saddening, or convey a deeper meaning 
in its illustration of a holy presence in the chamber of pain, than 
that individualized by the wife of the President! 

The name of Lucretia Garfield will remain linked indissolubly 
with that of the great soul whose love she honored, so long as 
wifely heroism is honored of man. In his youth, in the days of 
his poverty, she made him rich with the countless wealth of her 
woman's love. She pointed the way to a great future. To her 
careful management and sound advice is much of his early success 



644 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

to be attributed. Standing beside him at the coronation of his 
ambition^ in the hour of his glory, she looked upon him with a 
pride beyond language, as, under such conditions, what wife would 
not; but in the dark days, which measured the period from July 
2d to September 20th, and ended so deplorably to her and the coun- 
try, it was a wifely love, destitute of all vainglory, with which, in 
full view of Christendom, she ministered, as only angels do, to the 
wounded form of her dying husband. No picture could be more 
pathetic, more instructive, more valuable as an example to all 
women of this day and coming ages ; and it will be so remem- 
bered. Garfield's struggle for a life that had become historic for its 
manly courage, was brave indeed; but with the history of that 
struggle there must forever be associated the imperishable name of 
a wife as great as he in all that makes greatness worth living or 
dying for in the eyes of men. " Man is the image and glory of 
God, but the woman is the glory of the man." 

Now the land was covered with a pall. The insignia of mourning 
greeted the eye everywhere. It was the spontaneous expression of 
the people, without premeditation or system. Concert of action in 
a matter where every one moved upon the instant was not feasi- 
ble; but it was as if the President were lying dead in every hab- 
itation. Prompted by a sentiment which defies analysis, but which 
sprang from that wearisome vigil at his bedside; from those long 
weeks of testing his pulse, listening to his breathings, and won- 
dering at his courage ; from hope deferred, gloom, despair, death — 
it agitated the depths of universal humanity, and impelled a re- 
sponse to the holiest dictates of every heart. Notwithstanding the 
all-pervading grief, the demonstration was wonderful and without 
a parallel. Quite as wonderful for its universality as for any of 
its physical conformations. A poor widow, in a Western city, draped 
her doorway with her one black dress. She had no other means of 
joining in the general expression of grief. Doubtless many other 
widows did the same thing for exactly the same reason. Others, 
who had not even a decent dress, hung out a single yard of black 
muslin, or a less quantity of crape. The poor made as emphatic 
expression of their grief as the wealthy, and the humblest ofier- 



GAZING ON THE SEA.— ILLIMITABLE GRIEF. 645 

ing of honest poverty invariably carried to the heart of the ob- 
server a deeper pathos than the ornate decorations with which the 
rich man symboled his lamentation. This is not said in a spirit 
of criticism, bnt to record a fact which is a part of this history, 
and which teaches a lesson germane to its object. 

Not in this country alone were these things prominent, but they 
were part of the mourning of every land that regards the usages 
of civilization ; and wherever there is recognition of mental and 
moral worth, there was heartfelt grief at the death of Garfield. 
The world missed him. He occupied a place of great responsibil- 
ity, which no one could be better fitted for. His administration 
gave promise of good results. He was anxious to do good for the 
sake of good, rather than for popularity. He was resolved to do 
right regardless of those who might stand in his path. He did every 
thing in his power that he believed to be right. He opposed, with 
all his might, every thing he believed to be wrong. He was a just 
man and forgiving, with no hooks upon which to hang grudges. He 
was a Christian statesman — the highest type of a chief executive. 
How much the country lost in his death will never be computed. 
It is beyond estimate. It is more than any one has yet attempted 
to figure out. The sum of such a man's value is quite beyond the 
reach of mathematics. It can not be measured; therefore grief 
for his loss is illimitable. 



646 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE SOLEMN PAGEANT. 

There he lies dead beside the moaning sea! 

The days of watching and the nights of pain, 
The burning flush, the keen anxiety, 

The ebb and flow of hope, the blinding rain 

Of bitter tears that came and came again, — 
All, all are ended ! O'er the sighing deep 

Floats on the solemn air a sad, low strain, 
A mournful dirge that seems to sob and weep! 
O Nation, take your dead and lay him down to sleep ! 

THE President was dead. The curtain had fallen at last 
between an anxious people and the first citizen of the 
Republic. It only remained for fifty millions of freemen to 
take him up with tender hands and bear him away to the nar- 
row house prepared for all living. It was a sad duty which 
the Nation was not likely to neglect or leave to others to 
perform. 

In the preparations made for the President's funeral there 
was neither passion nor excitement. When Csesar fell there 
was an uproar. The benches of the Senate House were torn 
up by the maddened populace to make a pyre for the burning 
of the dead Imperator's body. "We have improved upon all 
that. The temperate spirit and self-restraint of the American 
people promise well for the perpetuity of the Republic. How- 
ever much cause there may be for anger and alarm, it 
is not likely that our institutions will ever be endangered by 
an outburst of popular fury. 

The shutters of Francklyn cottage were closed. The sun's 
face wore a coppery tint as he came up from the sea to look 
on the scene of death. The wind, which had blown stormily 



THE SOLEMN PAGEANT.— vS AD PREPAEATIONS. 647 

for a week, fell to a calm. A September haze filled the air 
and sky, and an indescribable quiet settled over the long, low 
shores of Jersey. AYith the rising of the snn a single craft far out 
at sea, floating, as it seemed, on nothing, broke the line of 
the horizon. 

At the cottage the silence of death prevailed. At a little 
distance, on all sides, armed sentinels, with fixed bayonets, 
paced their beats, guardians of the border line between now 
and hereafter, beyond which the living might not pass. The 
flag, which, since the arrival of the President at Elberon, had 
been floating from a pole thrust out of an upper window of 
the cottage, was draped with black; but beyond this som- 
ber signal no outward sign of mourning was apparent. The 
first comers were the journalists; but in their demeanor the 
customary eagerness of competition was no longer apparent. 
Fifty millions of people would, before night, read the truths 
which these reporters had come to gather, but their subject 
of inquiry was now death rather than life; and their demeanor 
was calm and respectful in that shadowy presence. 

At half-past 10, Secretaries Windom, Kirkwood, and Hunt and 
Postmaster-General James arrived at Elberon, and were invited 
at once to the Attorney-General's cottage, situated about as far 
to the north-east of the hotel as the Francklyn cottage, in 
which the body of the President lay, is to the south-east. There 
they remained during the forenoon discussing the details of 
the events which had just transpired, in which they were all so 
deeply interested. A half hour later General Grant, with his 
son and a friend, drove up and spent an hour in gathering 
information of the last hours of President Garfield. 

Meanwhile, the undertaker and his assistants had arrived 
and were preparing the body of the President for embalming 
and burial. The body showed the loss of flesh to a degree 
painful to look upon. Only the face preserved any thing like 
the appearance of the hving Garfield. The beard, in a measure, 
contributed to this, serving to conceal the hollowness of the 
wasted cheeks. The body was laid upon rubber cloths placed 



648 



LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 



upon the floor to await the autopsy, which was to take place 
in the afternoon. 

In the afternoon President Arthur arrived at Elberon. He 
had ah-eady taken the oath of office in New York City, and ha() 
then come immediately to Long Branch to tender condolence to 




CHESTER A. AUTIU'U. 



the friends of the dead and to confer with the Cabinet. The 
question under consideration was the arrangement of a pro- 
gramme for the funeral of the President. After the confer- 
ence, the following plan for the funeral services was ordered by 
the Cabinet, and was given for the information of the public 
by Secretary Blaine : 



THE SOLEMN PAGEANT.— THE AUTOPSY. 649 

" Elberon, N. J., September 20, ISSl. 

"The remains of the late President of the United States will be removed to 
Washington by special train on Wednesday, September 21, leaving Elberon at 10 
A. >i., and reaching Washington at 4 p. M. Detachments from the United States 
Army and from the marines of the Navy will be in attendance on arrival at 
Washington to perform escort duty. The remains will lie in state in the rotunda 
of the Capitol on Thursday and Friday, and will be guarded by deputations from 
the Executive Departments and by officers of the Senate and House of Eepre- 
Bentatives. 

" Religious ceremonies will be observed in the rotunda at 3 o'clock on Friday 
afternoon. At 5 o'clock the remains will be transferred to the funeral car and be 
removed to Cleveland, Ohio, via the Pennsylvania Eailroad, arriving there Satur- 
day at 2 p. M. In Cleveland the remains will lie in state until Monday at 2 p. M., 
and be then interred in Lakeview Cemetery. No ceremonies are expected in the 
cities and towns along the route of the funeral train beyond the tolling of bells. 
Detailed arrangements for final sepulture are committed to the municipal au- 
thorities of Cleveland, under the direction of the Executive of the State of Ohio. 

" James G. Blaine, Secretary of State." 

Meanwhile, on the afternoon of the 20th, a post-mortem 
examination of the President's body was made with a view 
of clearing up the many uncertainties which existed concern- 
ing the nature of the wound and the secondary causes of 
death. The autopsy lasted for about three and a half hours, 
and was conducted by the attending and consulting surgeons, 
assisted by Dr. D. S. Lamb, Assistant Surgeon of the Medical 
Museum at Washington, and Dr. A. H. Smith, of ISTew York. 
The revelations made by the examination were of an aston- 
ishing sort, chiefly so as it respected the diagnosis of the Pres- 
ident's injury, wdiich was found to have been utterly at vari- 
ance with the facts. At 11 o'clock p. m. an official bulletin — 
last of many — was prepared by the surgeons, setting forth the 
results of the autopsy, as follows : 

"Elberon, New Jersey, September 20, 1881. 
By previous arrangement, a post-mortem examination of the body of 
President Garfield was made this afternoon in the presence and with the 
assistance of Drs. Hamilton, Agnew, Bliss, Barnes, Woodward, Eeyburn, 
Andrew H. Smith, of Elberon, and Acting Assistant Surgeon D. S. Lamb, 
of the Army Medical Museum of Washington. The operation was per- 
formed by Dr. Lamb. It was found that the ball, after fracturing the 



650 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAKFIELD. 

right eleventh rib, had passed through the spinal column in front of the 
spinal cord, fracturing the body of the first lumbar vertebra, driven a 
number of small fragments of bone into the adjacent soft parts, and lodg- 
iii(^ below the pancreas, about two inches and a half to the left of the spine, 
and behind the peritoneum, where it had become completely encysted. 

"The immediate cause of death was secondary hemorrhage from one of 
the mesenteric arteries adjoining the track of the ball, the blood rui)tur- 
ing the peritoneum, and nearly a pint escaping into the abdominal cavity. 
This hemorrhage is believed to have been the cause of the severe pain in 
the lower part of the chest complained of just before death. An abscess 
cavity, six inches by four in dimensions, was found in the vicinity of the 
gall bladder, between the liver and the transverse colon, which were 
strongly adherent. It did not involve the substance of the liver, and no 
communication was found between it and the wound. 

"A long suppurating channel extended from the external wound, be- 
tween the loin muscles and the right kidney, almost to the right groin. 
This channel, now known to be due to the burrowing of pus from the 
wound, was supposed during life to have been the track of the ball. 

"On an examination of the organs of the chest, evidences of severe 
bronchitis were found on both sides, with broncho-pneumonia of the lower 
portion of the right lung, and, though to a much less extent, of the left. 
The lungs contained no abscesses, and the heart no clots. The liver was 
enlarged and fiitty, but not from abscesses. Nor were any found in any 
other organ except the left kidney, which contained near its surface a small 
abscess about one-third of an inch in diameter. 

"In reviewing th.^ history of the case in connection with the autopsy, 
it is quite evident that the different suppurating surfaces, and especially 
the fractured, spongy tissue of the vertebra, furnish a sufficient explana- 
tion of the septic condition which existed." 

During the first day after the President's death several inci- 
dents occurred worthy of note. Among others, came two dis- 
patches from Cleveland, whose people were profoundly touched 
by the death of their friend. The first was from a committee 

of the city council, and said : 

Cleveland, Ohio, September 20, 1881. 
3frs. J. A. Garfield, Elberon, New Jersey : 

In behalf of the trustees, we tender you ground in Lakeview Cemetery for the 
burial of our lamented President, such as you or your friends may select. 

(Signed by Executive Committee.) 



THE SOLEMN PAGEANT.— THE AGED MOTHER. 651 

This -was supplemented by the following clispatcli sent by 
the Mayor of Cleveland: 

Mrs. jAiiES A. Garfield, Long Brunch, N. J.: 

The people of this city, who have borne such love and honor to your husband, 
most earnestly and sincerely desire that his grave may be made here among us. 
Allow me, dear madam, to add to this publicly expressed desire of our citizens my 
own personal and official concurrence. E. R. Herrick, Mayor. 

These cordial offers, concurring with Mrs. Garlield's own 
wishes and the express desire of her dead husband, determined 
the choice of the spot where his body was to be laid to -rest. 

Another incident was the breaking of the news to the aged 
mother at home. Early in the morning a message came to 
Mrs. Larabee, sister of the President, who lives at Solon, Ohio, 
and with whom the poor old mother was for the time residing. 
The dispatch said: 

To Mrs. Eliza Garfield: 
James died this evening at 10:35. He calmly breathed his life away. 

D. G. SWAIM. 

For awhile the dreadful intelligence was held back from the 
faithful heart that had sheltered James A. Garfield in his 
childhood. At length, after breakfast, she sought, as usual, 
the daily telegram from her son. Finding the dispatch, she 
was about to read, when her granddaughter took the message 
from her trembling hands. 

" Grandma," she said, " would you be surprised to hear bad 
news this morning? " 

" 'Why, I do n't know," said the old lady. 

" Well, I should not," said Mrs. Larabee, " I have been fear- 
ing and expecting it all the morning." 

" Grandma," said Ellen Larabee, " there is sad news." 

"Is he dead?" asked the old lady, tremulously. 

"He is." 

The quick tears started in the sensitive eyes. There was no 
violent paroxysm of grief. No expression of frenzy told of the 
anguish within. 

"Is it true?" she asked, with quivering lips. "Then the 
Lord help me, for if he is dead what shall I do?" 



652 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

It was the bitterest of all the outcries of sorrowing human 
nature — the anguish of a mother's breaking heart. The morn- 
ing of the 21st of September broke calmly from the sea. 
Every thing was in readiness for the departure. For a brief 
period in the morning the people of Elberon were permitted 
to view the face of the dead. The coffin rested upon supports 
draped in black. There were few decorations. Upon the top 
were two black palm leaves. Some white flowers and a hang- 
ing basket of ferns with some branches of cycas leaves, em- 
blematic of heroism, completed the decorations. 

At half-past nine a brief funeral service was pronounced over 
the dead by Rev. Charles J. Young, of Long Branch, and then 
preparations were made for the immediate departure of the sad 
cortege on its sorrowful journey. 

The train which was to bear away the President's remains 
was backed up to the cottage on the track that had been so 
magically laid over the lawns on the night before he was 
brought to Long Branch. It consisted of an engine and 
four cars, which were all heavily and tastefully draped in 
mourning. Almost all the woodwork on the sides of the cars 
was covered with crape, only the number of the car being left 
exposed. The front car was for the baggage. The next was 
specially arranged for the coffin. In the center of this was 
a large catafalque for the casket to rest upon. It was cov- 
ered with crape arranged in graceful folds. It rested upon 
a raised platform also draped in mourning and surrounded at 
the bottom by flags. The sides and top of the car were en- 
tirely covered with black cloth. Cane chairs were provided for 
the military guard of honor which occupied the car with the 
coffin. The third car was a combination one for members of 
the Cabinet. It was also draped in mourning inside and out. 
The last car was the private car of President Roberts, of the 
Pennsylvania Railroad. It was reserved for Mrs. Garfield and 
family, and was the same car in which she came to Long 
Branch on the 6th of September. This car was also tastefullv 
draped in black. 



THE SOLEMN PAGEANT —DEPARTURE FROM ELBERON. 653 



Promptly at 10 o'clock the train moved slowly away toward 
the Elberou station. At this time there were two or three 
thousand persons lining the track, and the roadway was crowded 
with carriages for half a mile. Men stood with uncovered 
heads watching the train as it disappeared from view. 

It was expected that 
President Arthur 
would arrive at At- 
torney-General Mac- 
Veagh's house in the 
morning, and with the 
Cabinet visit the 
house where Presi- 
dent Garfield laj' dead. 
The mixed crowd of 
city and country peo- 
ple who had gathered 
from many miles 
thought they would 
witness the closing 
scenes of the dead 
President's career and 
at the same time catch 
a glimpse of his suc- 
cessor. The arrange- 
ments were subsequently changed, however. President Arthur 
decided to take a special train from Jersey City and meet the 
funeral procession at the Elberon station. 

Without further delay the funeral train moved slowly along 
the track which had been laid across the fields specially to con- 
vey President Garfield to his new home by the sea. Nearly 
every hat was removed from the heads of the observers when 
the train approached. It moved along the left-hand track un- 
til the last car was parallel with the rear car of the special 
train from Jersey City, which stood on the right-hand track. 
President Arthur and the rest of the party then stepped into 




MISS MOLLIE GARFIELD. 



654 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

the car where the Cabinet were seated. After greeting the per- 
sons in the car, the President seated himself behind Secretary 
Blaine, and the two engaged in conversation. General Grant 
took a seat immediately behind President Arthur, when he was 
soon joined by Chief-Justice Waite. The engine which drew 
the train from the Francklyn cottage drew the train only to the 
main road. Engineer Paige and Fireman Gwinnell, who had 
charge of the engine when President Garfield was removed 
from Washington, were waiting with the same engine on a side 
track. Deep folds of mourning hung from the engineer's box 
and pieces of crape covered the brass and other portions of the 
engine. Paige, who has always felt great pride in the success- 
ful removal from Washington, backed his engine on the main 
track and coupled it to the car which contained the cofti]i. At 
twelve minutes past 10 o'clock, the conductor told Paige that 
all was ready. A few putfs was the only noise made, and the 
funeral train moved quietly away. 

At the various points en route there were tokens of .the deep- 
est popular sorrow. At Ocean Grove, the railroad for half a 
mile on both sides was lined with people. On the platform of 
the depot were from 4,000 to 5,000 men and women. As the 
train passed the men stood with uncovered heads, absolutely 
silent. The bells tolled, and then the crowd dispersed. Flags 
were at half-mast, and the buildings were draped in black. 

There was a brief stop at Monmouth Junction, and at Prince- 
ton, where the students from the College of N"ew Jersey were 
gathered to catch a glimpse of the passing train. They stood 
five hundred strong along the track, which had been strewed 
with flowers by the people. At Trenton, which was passed just 
before noon, an immense crowd of people had assembled. Every 
man took oflf his hat, and the women bowed their heads as the 
train went by. Many persons were aftected to tears. 

At 12: 50 p. M. the cortege reached Gray^s Ferry Junction, op- 
jiositc Philadelphia, where a great crowd, standing in silence, caught 
a glimpse of the casket containing the remains of the dead Presi- 
dent. At Wilmington, fully ten thousand people were assembled. 



THE SOLEMN PAGEANT.— AERIVAL AT WASHINGTON. 655 



The bells of the city hall, court-house, and fire-engine houses were 
tolled while the train was jDassing through the city. At Baltimore 
there was no stop. Several thousand persons were gathered about 
the depot, who uncovered as the train passed, preserving the most 
respectful silence. Only three or four persons on the train were 
visible and recognized, the curtains of the cars being closed. 

At 4:35 I'. M. the cortege reached Washington City. As the 
train came into the depot, there 
was a hush among the throng, 
and then every head was uncov- 
ered. The scene that followed 
was impressive in the extreme. 
Mrs. Garfield, heavily veiled 
and dressed in deep mourning, 
alighted, leaning on the arm of 
Secretary Blaine on the one side, 
and supported by her son Harry 
on the other. Members of the 
Cabinet followed, and among 
them towered the form of Presi- 
dent Arthur, on whose face were 
written the various emotions 
which must have struggled 
within him as he was welcomed 

by the sad and silent thousands of the people of Washington. 
This party was followed by the pall-bearers, consisting of trained 
artillery sergeants. As the cortege reached Sixth Street, where 
the military was massed, the Marine Band began slowly to play 
" Nearer, my God, to Thee." As the notes of this beautiful mel- 
ody filled the air all heads were bowed in reverence, and even the 
rabble in the streets was awed into silence. 

The scene at the east front of the Capitol was an imposing one. 
The wide plateau was filled with the various military organizations 
in bright uniforms, conspicuous among which were the marines. The 
General and staff officers of the Army and the officers of the Navy 
formed in two lines leading to the foot of the broad marble steps 




JAMES R. GARFIELD. 



656 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 



on 



the cast front, standing on which President GarfiekT had de- 
livered his inaugural address. Directly in front was the hearse, 
drawn by six magnificent gray horses. At the foot of the steps 
stood the officers of the Senate and of the House, and the Re- 
ception Committee. When the band had played a dirge, the pall- 
bearers advanced, followed by the President, Cabinet, Justices 
of the Supreme Court, Senators and Representatives, and filed 
slowly and sadly up a pathway which had been kept open in 
the middle of the broad flight of stairs, the sides being densely 
packed with people who had crowded in to see this part of the 
pageant. 

On reaching the center of the vast rotuntjla, the casket was placed 
on the catafidque which had been prepared for it, and then the Presi- 
dent and the Cabinet, together with General Grant, the Senators 
and the Representatives, stood for a moment in silence. Then 
a panel covering the face of the dead President was removed, and 
they looked for the last time upon the wasted features of him who 
so lately was chief of the Nation, and then solemnly moved away. 
The sight of the face of the dead President was indeed terrible, and 
upon most who saw it an impression was left which time can never 
efface. It was pinched and haggard to the last extreme ; the skin 
yellow and glistening; the eyes sunken, and the lips tightly drawn. 
The nose looked unnaturally long, sharp, and hooked; and alto- 
gether there was but the slighest resemblance to the heroic form 
and face of him who had been James A. Garfield. 

The arrangement made was that for two days and nights the 
body of the illustrious dead should lie in state in the rotunda of 
the Capitol. This plan was carried out. A guard of honor stood 
right and left, and very soon, in orderly procession past the mor- 
tal remains of their dead friend, the people began to pour in a 
continuous stream. It was now night-fall, and the shadows came 
down around the magnificent structure which for eighteen years 
had been the scene of the toils and triumphs of Garfield, now, 
alas, about to witness the last ovation in his honor. 

On the morning of the 22d of September Washington City 
became, at sunrise, the scene of such a pageant as had never but 



•niE SOLEMN PAGEANT.— MOURNING THOUSANDS. 657 

cace been beheld within those spacious avenues. By six o'clock 
the crowds had assembled, and were filing through the east door 
of the Capitol. As the day advanced the throng increased; and, 
as it became absolutely necessary that each person should have his 
turn in the solemn procession, the latest comers were obliged to 
take up their stations at the end of a long line to the rear. By 
ten o'clock this was found to reach to the crossing of Second 
Street and the avenue south-west — considerably more than a quar- 
ter of a mile away. All along this line policemen walked back 
and forth, to prevent stragglers from the outside from coming into 
the line out of turn. The people forming this procession were of 
the highest and lowest; among the number, thousands of women 
and children. 

The time required to pass from this extreme limit of the line 
to the catafalque was, at the most crowded period, three hours and 
a half, and this under a broiling sun and upon a broad asphaltum 
pavement, which scorched the feet that pressed it. 

During the day there were no incidents iu the rotunda worthy 
of mention. Beyond the ceaseless tramp of the people, who 
poured through in a continuous stream, there was no sound — the 
desire for conversation being swallowed up in the awe which the 
presence of the dead President inspired. Some of the people 
passed the coffin without lifting their eyes frpm the floor, unwil- 
ling to trust themselves to gaze upon the awful sight. Others, 
more curious, looked as long as they could, and then reluctantly 
moved aAvay. There were a great many colored people in the 
throng, of both sexes and of all ages and conditions. Common 
laborers in tattered clothing crowded upon sumptuously-dressed 
ladies and gentlemen, all inspired by a common motive. At one 
time during the day it was ascertained by actual count that sixty 
persons passed the coffin in one minute, or at the rate of 3,600 an 
hour, or more than 40,000 during the day. This is probably not 
above the actual number which passed through the rotunda. 

At the farther end of the catafalque were some beautiful floral 
decorations. There was a broken column of white roses of the 
Marshal Neil variety, about three feet high, surmounted bv a white 
42 



658 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

dove with wings outspread, as if in the act of alighting. Next 
came a lovely design representing ''The Gates Ajar." These 
columns were also of white roses, and the bars of the gate were 
of variegated white and green. The gate-posts were surmounted 
by globes of immortelles. Next to this was a crown of white rose- 
buds, the points being tipped with fern. Beyond this was a bank 
of white flowers from which sprang a column on which was perched 
a white dove. Upon the bank of white was worked in green the 
words: "Our Martyr President." At each end of the floral dis- 
play was a wreath of iv.y leaves lying on the floor. In the after- 
noon there was sent from the British Legation a massive wreath, 
one of the most beautiful ever seen in Washington. It came 
in obedience to orders telegraphed from the Queen, and the ac- 
companying card bore the following touching and significant in- 
scription : 

" Queen Victoria, to the memory of the late President Gar- 
field. An expression of her sorrow and sympathy with Mrs. 
Garfield and the American Nation." 

"September 22, 188L" 

The interior of the rotunda was hung in black, though not so 
heavily as to produce a marked effect. In all other respects this 
portion of the Capitol was of the usual appearance. 

After passing the catafalque, most of the visitors left the build- 
ing by the west staircase and departed; but many mounted to 
the dome and viewed the crowds assembled at the cast front from 
that point of vantage. All day the streets were thronged with 
people. The street-cars, which had been appropriately draped, 
were filled to overflowing both to and from the Capitol, and all 
the conveyances in the city were brought into requisition. The 
trains brought many visitors from all parts of the nation to the 
city ; and many country people from Maryland and Virginia took 
advantage of tli.e pageant to visit the city. 

During the afternoon there were some indications that the de- 
composition of the body had set in ; and, it being understood that 
in such event it was the wish of Mrs. Garfield that the features 



THE SOLEMN PAGEANT.— THE WIFE'S FAREWELL. 



659 



of her husband should be shut out from the public gaze, the lid 
of the casket was closed, by order of Secretary Blaine, at about 
6 : 80 in the evening. 

Thus, with the evening twilight, the face of James A. Garfield, 




GAKFIELD. 



which, for so many years, had shone with a great radiance among 
the people, was shut forevQr from the sight of men. . 

The morning of the 23d of September witnessed a renewal of 
the scene of the day before. At half-past eleven all the doors 
and avenues of approach were closed in order that Mrs. Garfield 
might go in and remain for a few minutes alone with her dead. 
What passed behind those silent curtains belongs not to curious 



660 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

history, peering ever with sleepless eyes into the secrets of life 
and death, but only to the stricken woman who went in alone to 
her honored dead. 

After this affecting episode the procession was renewed for a 
season, and then preparations were made for the observance of the 
formal ceremonies of the day. At two o'clock the services began. 
Appropriate passages of Scripture were read by Rev. Dr. Rankin, 
and this was followed with a touching prayer by Elder Isaac 
Errett, of Cincinnati. As the closing words of the invocation 
died away, the Rev. F. D. Powers, of the Vermont Avenue Chris- 
tian Church, of which President Garfield was a member, delivered 
a feeling address. He spoke in a clear voice, and was distinctly 
heard in every portion of the hall : 

"The cloud so long pending over the Nation has at last burst upon our 
heads. We sit half-crushed amid the ruin it has brought. A million 
million prayers and hopes and tears, as far as human wisdom sees, were 
vain. Our loved one has passed from us. But there is relief. We 
look away from the body. We forget, for a time, the things that are 
seen. We remember with joy his faith in the Son of God, whose gospel 
he sometimes himself preached, and which he always truly loved. And 
we see light and blue sky through the cloud structure, and beauty in- 
stead of ruin, — glory, honor, immortality, spiritual and eternal life in the 
place of decay and death. The chief glory of this man, as we think of 
him now, was his discipleship in the school of Christ. His attainments 
as scholar and statesman will be the theme of our orators and historians ; 
and they must be worthy men to speak his praise worthily. But it is as 
a Christian that we love to think of him now. It was this which made 
his life to man an invaluable boon, his death to us an unspeakable loss, 
his eternity to himself an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that 
fadeth not away. 

"He was no sectarian. His religion was as broad as the religion of 
Christ. He was a simple Christian, bound by no sectarian ties, and wholly 
in fellowship with all pure spirits. He was a Christologist rather than 
a theologist. He. had great reverence for the family relations. His 
example as son, husband, and father, is a glory to this Nation. He had 
a most kindly nature. His power over human hearts was deep and 
strong. He won men to him. He had no enemies. The hand that 



THE SOLEMN PAGEANT.— BORNE AWAY. 661 

struck liim was not the liand of his enemy, but the enemy of the posi- 
tion, the enemy of the country, the enemy of God. He sought to do 
right, manward and Godvvard. 

"He was a grander man than we know. He wrought, even in his 
pain, a l)etter work for the Nation than we can now estimate. He fell 
at the height of his achievements, not from any fault of his; but we may. 
in some sense, reverently apply to him the words spoken of his dear Lord : 
' He was wounded for our transgressions; he Avas bruised for our iniquities; 
the chastisement of our peace was upon him.' As the nations remember 
the Macedonian as Alexander the Great and the Grecian as Aristides the 
Just, may not the son of America be known as Garfield the Good? 

" Our President rests; he had joy in the glory of work, and he loved 
to talk of the leisure that did not come to him. Now he has it. This 
is the day, precious because of the service it rendered. He is a freed 
sj)irit; absent from the body, he is present with the Lord. On the 
heights whence came his help he finds repose. What rest has been his 
for these four days! The brave spirit which cried in his body: 'I am 
tired,' is where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at 
rest. The patient soul which groaned under the burden of the suffering 
flesh: ' O, this jjain,' is now in a world without pain. Spring comes, the 
flowers bloom, the buds put forth, the birds sing. Autumn rolls round, 
the birds have long since hushed their voices, the flowers have faded and 
fallen away; the forest foliage assumes a sickly, dying hue: — so earthly 
things pass away, and what is true remains with God. 

*'The pageant moves; the splendor of arms and the banners glitter in 
the sunlight ; the music of instruments and of oratory swells upon the 
air; the cheers and praises of men resound. But the spring and sum- 
mer pass by, and the autumn sees a Nation of sad eyes and heavy hearts, 
and what is true remains of God. ' The Eternal God is our refuge, and 
underneath are the everlasting arms.'" 

At the close of the address another prayer w^as offered by Rev. 
J. G. Butler. As the last \vords of the service died away a 
beautiful rainboNV appeared upon a bank of clouds in the east, and 
while this arch of promise rested calmly against the background 
of black, the casket was taken up by the pall-bearers and borne 
away to the hearse. The funeral tra'n was already in waiting at 
the depot of the Pennsylvania Railway, and every thing was in 



662 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAKFIELD. 

readiness for the departure. The streets were lined with people, 
and no visible sign of grief was lacking to testify the sorrow of 
the people for the dead, and their sympathy for the living. The 
Marine Band played a solemn dirge, and at sixteen minutes past 
five o'clock the train started for Cleveland. 

The journey from Washington to the west was made without re- 
markable incident. Crowds, large beyond all precedent, awaited 
the passage of the train at every point. In Baltimore, Vvdiich was 
reached before dark, the whole city had apparently turned out to 
see the draped coaches go by. As the train reached the outer 
edge of the waiting throng, Mrs. Garfield was seated in her car 
looking out of the window. Knowing her disposition to shrink 
from publicity, one. of her companions arose to put down the shade. 
But she asked that it be allowed to remain open, saying that she 
was glad to see the crowds which had assembled to do honor to 
her husband. 

All on the funeral train retired early and remained in bed until 
they arrived in Pittsburgh. In the night, however, those awake 
saw everywhere the crowds which were in waiting. At Altoona 
a weird scene impressed itself upon the minds of those who saw it. 
The place was passed in the middle hours of the night. The 
darkness was made visible by large numbers of pine torches held 
by workingnicn stationed at intervals along the streets. At East 
Liverpool the members of a Post of the Grand Army of the 
Republic awaited the passage of the train. At another place the 
track was strewn with flowers. At Pittsburgh, which was reached 
a little after six o'clock, the whole town was astir, and the train 
made its way between dense and silent masses of humanity. In 
the morning all on the train called on Mrs. Garfield to pay their 
respects. She had borne the fatigue of the night and the long 
journey quite well. 

At nearly every station along the route, bells Mxre heard tolling 
as the train passed, and at one or two places dirges Avere played by 
brass bands. It was noticed by the passengers that the women in 
the crowds through which the train passed were weeping. Very 
good time was made as far as Pittsburgh, but at that point a dis- 



THE SOLEMN PAGEANT.— AT CLEVELAND. 663 

patch -was received from Cleveland asking the railroad authorities to 
delay the train an hour or two, as the citizens had not yet com- 
pleted their arrangements for the reception. On this account the 
speed was decreased, and the train did not arrive at Cleveland until 
1 : 15 in the afternoon. 

The ceremony of reception at the latter city was simple, and 
every thing was decorously done. Long before the train was ex- 
pected the people of the town, in carriages, street cars, and on foot, 
made their way toward the station. Military and civic organiza- 
tions were already on the spot, and although there was some inev- 
itable bustle, every thing was in place when the train arrived. As 
the draped engine drew near, every head was uncovered. When 
the train stopped, the citizens' committee of reception, which had 
met the cortege as it passed into Ohio, stepped off the train, and 
formed into double line. The Judges of the Supreme Court, Sen- 
ators and Officers of the Army and Navy followed, and took their 
positions in the line without delay. 

The coffin containing the body was then lifted from the car bv 
the regular soldiers who accompanied it on the train, and carried 
to the hearse. The personal friends and attendants of Mrs. Gar- 
field, including the members of the Cabinet and their wives, then 
passed between the two lines. Last came Mrs. Garfield leaning 
upon the arm of her son Harry, and escorted upon the other side 
by Secretary Blaine, Mrs. Garfield and her family were taken to 
a carriage and driven directly to the house of James Mason, which 
became her temporary home. 

It had been determined that the remains of the President 
should be conveyed to Monument Square, and there be laid in state 
until the day of interment. To this end a pavilion, perhaps the 
finest structure of the kind ever erected, had been built in the 
middle of the square at the intersection of Superior and Ontario 
Streets; and here the body of the President was to lie until the 
26th of September, which had been fixed upon as the day of sepul- 
ture. The pavilion, tasteful in design and rich in decoration, 
was a fit exponent of the gorgeous solemnity of sorrow. Thf 
structure was forty feet square at the base. The four fronts were 



664 



LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 



spanned by arches thirty-six feet high and twenty-four feet in 
width. The catafakjue upon which the casket rested was five and 

a half feet high, covered 
with black velvet, and 
handsomely f e s t o o n e d. 
Long carpeted walks as- 
cended to the floor from 
the cast and west fronts. 
The pavilion was seventy- 
two feet high to the apex 
of the roof. From the 
center of the roof rose a 
beautiful gilt sphere, sup- 
porting the figure of an an- 
gel twenty-four feet high. 
The columns at each side 
of the arches were orna- 
mented by shields of a 
beautiful design and ex- 
quisitely draped. Over 
these w^ere suspended un- 
furled flags. The centers 
of the arches bore similar 
shields. On the angles of 
the roof were groups of 
furled flags. Projecting 
from the angles of the 
base were elevated plat- 
forms, occupied by fully- 
uniformed guards. Each 
platform was provided 




JAMES AND HARKY GARFIELD. 

The structure Avas 



field artillery 

base to dome, with black and white crape 

displayed in various portions of the pavilion 



with a suitable piece of 
appropriately decorated, fron^ 



Flowers and flags were 



The interior was beautified with rare plants, choice flowers, and 



THE SOLEMN PAGEANT.— IX STATE. 665 

exquLsite floral designs, two carloads of which had been brought 
i'rom Cincinnati. The whole was a magnificent piece of work, 
both in design and execution. 

At the east and west entrances to Monumental Park were heavy 
Gothic arches with drive-ways and openings for foot passengers 
on each side. They were situated at a sufficient distance from the 
catafahiue to appear to be a part of it. The eastern one was cov- 
ered with crape, with Mhite and black trimmings running down 
each column, and the top bordered with blue and white stars. 
Added to these were several golden shields. The western gate- 
way was similar in construction, and seemed fairly to close up Su- 
perior Street to the view. On the extreme outside pillars were 
the names of the States in black letters. 

Into this solemn and beautiful structure, at the head of an 
almost endless procession, and draAvn in a beantiful hearse, sur- 
rounded with guards of honor, was borne the body of the dead 
Garfield. Here the casket was laid upon the catafalque prepared 
for its reception. The day was already worn to evening, but it 
was decided not to admit the throng of people until the morrow. 

Meanwhile, a last resting-place had been chosen where the great 
Ohioan should be at peace. The place selected for the tomb was 
at the top of the most commanding knoll in Lakeview Cemetery. 
Below it lie two ornamental lakes of considerable size, and on all 
sides, except the south, stand the marble and granite monuments of 
the dead. Xorthward, in the distance stretching along the horizon 
on either hand for twenty miles, can be seen the blue waters of Erie. 
The selection of this site was made by the trustees of the ceme- 
tery, subject to Mrs. Garfield's approval, which was promptly and 
thankfully given. 

So one more day closed In the shadows of the autumnal twilight, 
and Ohio sat still beside her dead. 

It was the morning of Sunday. A strange vision rose witli 
the sun. Cleveland was thronged wnth illimitable crowds of 
people. The murmur of the multitudes, though subdued, grev/, 
and became continuous. At nine o'clock the guards about the 
public square made an opening in their line npon the west side 



666 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

through which the multitude began to pour. They were kept 
in line four and five and six abreast, marching in families, 
squares, groups, and indiscriminately, but still keeping their 
ranks, and sweeping steadily and rapidly onward at the east 
and west sides of the catafalque. Inclined planes had been 
orected and carpeted so that the throngs marched easily up on 
the one side and down on the other. The pace was too rapid to 
make the visit a satisfactory one — for the exquisite floral adorn- 
ments were tempting enough to furnish pleasure for a visit of 
an hour — but all had ijn opportunity to get one glance at the cof- 
fin which contained the remains of him they had met to honor. 

As the morning wore on the procession grew in length and 
volume. In an hour after the movement began the line 
stretched away to the distance of a square ; then two squares ; 
then a half mile. The people passed at the rate of one hun- 
dred and forty to the minute. Still there was no abatement of 
the tide which poured past the catafalque. In the afternoon 
the immense volume of humanity w^as sw^oUen to a river whose 
surging, silent waters seemed tilled from fountains exhaustless 
as the ocean. Later in the day came a storm of thunder and 
wnnd; only a few were driven from the column; others filled 
the vacant places, and still the tide surged on. As the crowds, 
never ending, swept by the catafalque, every hat was raised, 
and with uncovered heads, often with tears in their eyes and 
half-suppressed sobs, the people moved on. Late into the 
night they continued to come in unbroken ranks, the old and 
young, the pure and vile, the lame upon their crutches, the in- 
firm leaning upon their companions, and babes in the arms oF 
their mothers. It was the day of the people. It was estimated 
thAt during the day 150,000 human beings passed silently by 
the casket whose mute temint recked no longer of earthly 
pomp and pageant. 

On the evening of the 25th, Monument Square was s,^t aglow 
with electric lights, which, from high places here and there, 
threw over the strange scene their brilliant, almost unearthly, 
splendor. On the outskirts of the guard-lines gi-eat masses of 



THE SOLEMN PAGEANT.— FINAL CEREMONIES. 667 

mci. and women still lingered, gazing silently towards tlie cata- 
falque suiTounded by sentinels. At midnight only a few guards 
and workmen remained inside the line, though many persons 
were yet on the streets outside. The scene was singularly im- 
pressive at this hour. The almost perfect silence, the bright 
glare of the lights, the ceaseless movements of the sentinels, 
the sighing of the wind through the trees, combined to create 
a feeling of awe in the breasts of all beholders. The massive 
structure, reared so quickly in the large square, ■ seemed the 
work of magic. The fact that the noble, patriotic Garfield lay 
calmly sleeping the final sleep amid the scenes of his early 
manhood, carried its sad lesson to every heart, and then came, 
quick as thought, the reflection that the morrow would hear 
the mournful monologue of '■^ Earth to earth, ashes to ashes.'' 

It was the morning of the last day on earth. Well-nigh all the 
formalities, many and sometimes tedious, peculiar to the burial of 
one falling in high office and high honor, had been observed, and 
to these had been added a thousand tokens, extemporized out of 
the nation's grief, befitting the funeral of a beloved Chief Magis- 
trate. It only remained for the people once more to lift the casket 
containing the body of their friend, and to bear it to the home 
})rcpared for all living. 

At 9 o'clock on the morning of the 26th the line of people lead- 
ing toward the pavilion found itself suddenly confronted by a line 
of muskets. The order had been given to clear the gates. M.ev 
and women who had been in line for hours were unable to pro- 
ceed further, and many with ill-disguised resentment turned aside 
to seek a favorable .point to view the exercises. The troops noAv 
formed along each side of the Park, in a hollow square six hun- 
dred feet in length. The beautiful canopy stood in the center, at 
the intersection of the two streets, and under it lay the casket. 
An opening was made at the western end leading up to Superior 
Street, and this was maintained with some difficulty by a regiment 
of State troops. From this point to the canopy itself was stationed 
a line of marines from the Washington Navy-j^ard — a hvi>ad 
iiveuue, a half a mile in length, being thus kept open, so that the 



6GS LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

carriages of those entitled to admission could enter without diffi- 
culty. It was a beautiful sight from the canopy to look down 
this long double file of soldiers and knights, and the photogra- 
phers were busy in their efforts to preserve the picture. 

At 9 : 30 A. M. the funeral car, which was to convey the body 
to the cemetery, was drawn into the square by twelve black horses 
with black draperies fringed with silver lace. The horses were 
arranged four abreast. At the head of each of the six outside 
horses was a negro groom in long black coat, high silk hat, and 
white gloves. 

The car was elaborately decorated and surmounted by large 
black-and-white plumes, with folded battle flags at each corner. 
Next came a procession of carriages bearing the family and inti- 
mate friends of the dead President. Draped chairs were arranged 
about the catafalque, and here were seated not only those who were 
bound to the Garfield family by the ties of nature and intimate 
affection, but also a great number of the most distinguished states- 
men, jurists, and soldiers of the nation. The sound of a minute- 
gun broke the silence, and the services were opened with the 
reading of the Scriptures by Bishop Bedell and an invocation by 
the Rev. Ross C. Houghton. At eleven o'clock the Rev. Isaac 
Errctt, of Cincinnati, pronounced the funeral oration, which was 
a chaste and touching tribute to the memory of the great dead. 

At the close of this eloquent address, Rev. Jabez Hall an- 
nounced General Garfield's favorite hymn, " Ho ! reapers of life's 
harvest," v\^hich was sung by the choirs gathered about the cata- 
falque. Then followed a closing prayer and benediction by Rev. 
Charles S. Pomcroy, and then the removal of the casket to the 
cemetery. It was now noonday, and the heat was very oppressive. 
The funeral car had been drawn up to within fifty feet of the foot 
of the incline leading from the canopy, and a roll of carpeting 
covered the ground. The trained soldiers from Washington stood 
in line at the foot of the canopy, ready to carry out the body 
whenever the word \vas given. 

The members of the Cleveland Greys, with their high bearskin 
hats, stood like statues at the four corners of the canopy. The 



THE SOLEMN PAGEANT.— THE PEOCESSION. 669 

long line of soldiers stood, all attention, and the signal that all 
was ready was given. At the word of command the soldiers, with 
their Vv'hite helmets, stepped briskly up the incline, and turning 
"about face," readily lifted the casket to their shoulders. Then, 
grasping each other by the shoulder, thus giving the casket all the 
support necessary, they marched with slow and steady step down 
toward the funeral car. Not a word was spoken. The men were 
too well drilled to need more than a nod of command, and they 
carried the body to the car and laid it on the bier in silence. 
Then they marched back, and, turning again, took up their posi- 
tion on either side of the coffin. 

A line was now formed outside of the square in order that the 
cortege might pass on its way to the mansion of the dead. The 
wife and mother and children of the President, accompanied by a 
great throng of intimate friends, arose to follow, and then the pro- 
cession began to move towards the cemetery, three miles away. 

The funeral car proceeded beyond the city hall, and stopped 
until the first carriage started out. As the carriages containing 
the friends of the family and eminent men were filled, the car 
continued its journey until the massive archway at Erie Street was 
reached. Another jam of people were waiting here. And as the 
procession slowly passed onward these joined the ranks. Turn- 
ing into the broad and beautiful Euclid Avenue, the mournful 
cortege wended its way toward the cemetery in the distance. The 
great difficulty Avith the moving pageant was its immense volume. 
If all applicants had been given a place it would have been twice 
the length of the entire route. The weather had been very Avarm 
during the morning, but about two o'clock a refreshing breeze 
cooled the atmosphere, and an hour later a heavy storm of rain 
came down, rendering the march very disagreeable. Then there 
was a stampede of the crowd for shelter. The rain lasted for about 
fifteen minutes, and the bright uniforms of the soldiers, and the 
feathery plumes of the Knights Templar, and other societies, were 
drenched and soiled. 

The procession continued its weary march without further event 
until the head of the column arrived at a point about half a mile 



C70 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

distant from the cemetery gate, when a halt was ordered. The 
societies then opened their ranks, and the funeral car, with escort 
and following carriages, passed through and onward to the vault 
which was to receive the President's remains. 

Here was the last scene of the solemn pageant, begun afar by 
the soa. The surroundings were grand and beautiful. Art had 
led Nature by the hand to this last shrine of the earthly pilgrimage. 
On every side lay the soft carpet of green. Over the space from 
the roadway to the entrance of the vault was a magnificent canopy, 
draped in the gorgeous trappings of woe. The air wa,s burdened 
with the perfume of a thousand flowers. Leading into the vault 
was a dark carpet strewn with roses so thick that the carpet could 
not be at first recognized. On entering there was presented a 
somber darkness and sacred shade, equal to the catacombs of 
antiquity. There was a vault within a vault. The interior was 
hung all about with dense mourning, having large flags as a back- 
ground, . The choicest floral designs occupied every space on the 
walls, and the floor was deeply bedded with choice flowers. A 
large cross and crown, from the Belgian Legation, was in the 
center of the south side, and an elegant lyre, sent from Washing- 
ton, \vas on tlie opposite side, while numerous designs from the 
people of the city were placed here and there. It was impossible 
to use all the floral oiferings sent to this place of rest, and many 
of them were kept in the boxes at the vault. The walls of the 
chamber were trimmed with smilax, and the doors with crape fes- 
tooned with trailing vines. On the first step of the entrance, at 
the right door, was a group of three elegant crosses of roses, 
jasmine, carnations, with the words, 

" DEAD, BUT NOT FORGOTTEN," 

the gift of the Bolivian Legation at Washington. The steps were 
covered with evergreens and strewn with a thick carpet of rose- 
buds, tuberoses, and carnation. A large wreath, presented by the 
ladies of Dubuque, Iowa, was fastened near the ceiling, so that it 
could be seen at some distance. Looking through the open door 



THE SOLEMN PAGEANT.— EAETH TO EARTH. 671 

at the head of the bier was a lyre of roses, carnations, and tube- 
roi^es, bearing in immortelles the words : • 

^' IN MEMORY OF JAMES A. GARFIELD." 

At the foot of the bier stood a heavy cross, the gift of Mrs. Gar- 
field herself to the Decorative Committee, for that place. The sides 
of the vault were draped with rich black. The canopy of the in- 
terior consisted of many flags so arranged as to give the impression 
of an interior roof. The inner west wall Mas beautifully draped 
with flags festooned with black, and ornamented with a wreath of 
white roses. The floor was covered with a carpet of arbor vitas and 
roses. The heavy doors were removed, and the gates were draped 
with bunting and festoons of smilax. In the center of the vault 
stood the bier, a beveled parallelogram, with a base of black velvet 
and draped' entire with heavy black broadcloth, rich fringe, and a 
liberal trimming of evergreen. 

The procession halted. It was the last stage in the journey. 
The chief mourners, except Harry and James Garfield, did not 
alight. The clouds still w^ept at intervals. The band removed to 
a distance, sounding the notes of a solemn requiem. The Forest 
City Guards formed on the right and the Knights on the left. 
The funeral car Avas then drawn up over the lieavy carpeting of 
evergreens and floAvers. The long lines of Guards presented arms. 
There w^as a moment of death-like silence — a most impressive 
pause — when the inclined plane was adjusted to the car. The 
Marines marched up into the car and carefully bore the casket 
down and directly into the vault. It was set gently on the bier. 
The Guards stood silent. A brief historical sketch of the dead 
President was read by the Rev. J. H. Jones, former chaplain of 
the old Garfield regiment. The Vocal Society of Cleveland then 
chanted in beautiful measure the Twenty-second Ode of Horace. 
The friends and attendants were thanked for their presence and 
sympathy, and the benediction was pronounced by President B. A. 
Hinsdale, of Hiram College. The door Avas closed. A guard was 
placed about the sepuleher, and all that the earth could claim of 
James A. Garfield was left to sleep the sleep that knows no Avaking. 



672 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

To moralize on the Life and Work of Garfield would be super- 
fluous. He has furnished to the people of the United States one 
of the brightest and noblest examples of American citizensliip. 
Both in public life and private life he has contributed to the 
annals of our times a record unsullied as the azure sky. His steps 
were the steps of a pure man climbing up to greatness. His am- 
bitions were chastened — his aspirations the aspirations of a patriot. 
Over his great talents was shed the luster of noble activities, and 
his path was illumined with something of the effulgence of genius. 
His integrity was spotless, his virtue white as the snow. Of all 
our public men of recent times, Garfield was in a certain sense the 
most American. He had suffered all the hardships of the common 
lot. He had known poverty and orphanage and toil. To himself 
he owed in a preeminent degree his victory over adversity and his 
rise to distinction. He carried into public life, even to tlie highest 
seat of honor, the plainness and simplicity of a man of the people. 
Ostentation was no part of his nature, and subtlety found no place 
in his practices. In an age of venality and corruption — the very 
draif and ebb of the Civil War — he stood unscathed. He went up 
to his high seat and down to the doorway of the grave without the 
scent of fire on his garments. His name smells sweet in all lands 
under the circle of the sun, and his fame is a priceless legacy which 
posterity will not willingly let die. 



LIFE AND CHARACTER 

OF 

JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD 



A MEMORIAL ADDRESS, 

Delivered before the Congress of the United States, February 27, 1S82. 



BY JAMES G. BLAINE, 

EX-SECKETAEY OP SIfATE. 



IXTRODUCTORY NOTE.— After the first sorrow for President Garfield's death was somewhat 
modified by tim^e, what may be called the formal sorrow of the people began to seek a more 
elaborate expression. It was felt to be fitting that the- nation, as such, by her highest repre- 
sentative b(xly, should, by some suitable memorial services, commemorate the life and death 
of the late honored Chief Magistrate. Very soon after the opening of Congress, in December 
of 1881, various resolutions were introduced, looking to a formal observance in memory of 
the dead. After considerable discussion, the 27th of February, 1882, was fixed upon as the 
memorial day, and ex-Secretary Blaine was chosen as speaker to pronounce a .suitable eulogy 
on the life and character of Garfield. The occasion was one of the utmost state and solem- 
nity. There were present, besides the two Houses of Congress, the President and his Cabinet, 
the ministers resident of foreign powers, the generals of the army and commanders of the 
navy, and hundreds of the most distinguished men and women in America. The orator and 
the eulogy itself were in keeping with the occasion, and it has been deemed appropriate by 
the publishers to append to the Life and Wokk of Garfield the full text of Mr. Blaine's 
oration, which here follows.— J. C. R. 

Mk. President : — For the seco-nd time in this generation the great depart- 
ments of the Government of the United States are assembled in the Hall of 
Representatives to do honor to the memory of a murdered President. Lin- 
coln fell at the close of a mighty struggle^ in which the passions of men had 
been deeply stirred. ~ The tragical termination of his great life added but 
another to the lengthened succession of horrors which had marked so many 
lintels with the blood of the first born. Garfield was slain in a day of peace, 
when brother had been reconciled to brother, and when anger and hate had 
been banished from the land. " Whosoever shall hereafter draw the portrait 
of murder, if he will show it as it has been exhibited where such example 
was last to have been looked for, let him not give it the grim visage of 
Moloch, the brow knitted by revenge, the face bhick with settled hate. Let 



674 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

him draw, rather, a decorous, smooth-faced, bloodless demon; not so much an 
example of human nature in its depravity and in its paroxysms of crime, as 
an inlernal being, a iiend in the ordinary display and development of his 
character." 

From the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth till the uprising against 
Charles I., about twenty thousand emigrants came from old England to New 
England. As they came in pursuit of intellectual freedom and ecclesiastical 
independence rather than for worldly honor and profit, the emigration nat- 
urally ceased when the contest for religious liberty began in earnest at home. 
The man who struck his most effective blow for freedom of conscience by 
sailing far the colonies in 1G20 would have been accounted a deserter to leave 
after 1G40. The opportunity had then come on the soil of England lor that 
great contest which established the authority of Parliament, givve religious 
freedom to the people, sent Charles to the block, and committed to the hand.-} 
of Oliver Cromwell the supreme executive authority of England. The En- 
glish emigration was never renewed, and from these twenty thousand men, 
with a small emigration from Scotland and from France, are descended the 
vast numbers who have New England blood in their veins. 

In 1685 the revocation of the edict of Nantes, by Louis XIV., scattered to 
other countries four hundred thousand Protestants, who were among the 
most intelligent and enterprising of French subjects — nierchanis of capital, 
skilled manufacturers, and handicraftsmen, superior at the time to all others 
in Europe. A considerable number of these Huguenot French came to Amer- 
ica; a few landed in New England and became honorably prominent in its 
history. Their names have, in large part, become Anglicized, or have disap- 
peared, but their blood is traceable in many of the most reputable families, 
and tiieir fame is perpetuated in honorable memorials and useful insti- 
tutions. 

F'-om these two sources, the English-Puritan and the French-Huguenot, 
came the late President; his father, Abraham Garfield, being descended from 
the one, and his mother, Eliza Ballou, from the other. 

It was good stock on both sides — none better, none braver, none truer. 
There was in it an inheritance of courage, of manliness, of imperishable love 
of liberty, of undying adherence to principle. Garfield was proud of his 
blood ; and, with as much satisfaction as if he were a Briti.sh nobleman read- 
ing his stately ancestral record in Burke's Peerage, he spoke of himself as 
ninth in descent from those who would not endure the oppression of the Stu- 
arts, and seventh in descent from the brave French Protestants who refused to 
submit to tyranny even from the Grand Monarque. 

General Garfield delighted to dwell on these traits; and during his only visit 
to England lie busied himself in discovering every trace of his forefathers in 
parish registries and on ancient army rolls. Sitting with a friend, in the gal- 



15L.\1^FS EULOGY ON GAEFIELD. G7.5 

leTV oF tire House of Gommons, one niglit, after a long day's labor in this field 
of research, he said, with evident ehiti )h, that i« every war in which, for three 
centuries, patri«ts of English biaod had struck stuixiy blows for constitutional 
government and human liberty, his faniily had l>ee« represented. Tbey were 
4it ]\I.irst<jn Moor, at Naseby, and at Preston; they were at Bunker Hill, at 
Saratoga, and at Monmouth, and in his own })erson had battled for the same 
gTviat cause in the war which preserved the Union of tlie State.s. 

Lojing his father before he was two years old, the early life of Garfield was 
on ■ of privation, but its poverty has beefi made indelicately and unjustly 
prominent. Thousands of readers Iiavh imagined hini as the ragged, starving 
•child, whose reality too often greets the eye in the squalid sections of our 
Jarge cities. General GartieM's infancy and yo\ith had none of their destitu- 
tion, none of their pitiful features appealing to the tender heart and to the 
open han-1 of charity. He was a poor boy in the same sense in which Henry 
Clay was a poor boy; in which Andrew Jackson was a poor boy; in which 
Daniel Webster was a poor boy; in the sense in which a large majority of the 
eminent men of America, in all generations, have been poor boys. Bet.ire a 
great multitude of men, in a public speech, Mr. Webster bore this testimony: 

" It did not happen to me to be born in a log-cabin, but my elder brothers 
and sisters were born in a log-cabin raised amid the snow drifts of New 
Hampshire, at a period so early that when the smoke rose first from its rude 
"chim.ney, and curled over the frozen hills, there was no similar evidence of a 
white man's habitaticni between it and the settlements on the rivers of Canada. 
Its remains still exist. I make to it an annual visit. I carry my children to 
it to teach them the hardships endured by the generations which have gone 
before them. I love to dwell on the tender I'^^llections,- the kindred ties, ilie 
early affections, and the touching narratives and incidents which mingle with 
all I know of this primitive family abode." 

With the requisite change of scene the same words would aptly portray 
the early day.s of Garfield. The poverty of the frontier, where all are engaged 
in a common struggle and where a common sympathy and hearty co-operation 
lighten the burdens of each, is a very different poverty— different in kind, 
different in influence and effect— from that conscious and humiliating indi- 
gence which is every day forced to contrast itself with neighboring wealth 
on which it feels a sense of grinding dependence. The poverty of the frontier 
is indeed no poverty. It is but the beginning of wealth, and has the bound- 
less possibilities of the future always opening before it. No man ever grew 
up in the agricultural regions of the West where a house-raising, or even a 
corn-husking, is matter of common interest and helpfulness, with any other 
feeling than that of broad-minded, generous independence. This honorable 
independence marked the youth of Garfield as it marks the youth of millions 
of the best blood and brain now training for the future citizenship and future 
government of the republic. Garfield was born heir to land, to the title oi 



CTG LIFE OF JAMES A. GARP^IELD. 

frcclidliler which has been the patent and passport of .sell'-rcspect with tlve 
AuLilo-Saxon race ever since Hengist and Horsa landed on the sshores ol' Eng- 
hiiid. llis adventure on the canal — an alternative bet^veeii that and the 
deck (.1 a Lake Erie schooner — was a farmer boy's device for earning moiiev, 
ji;.-i a~ tlie New England lad begins a possibly great career by sailing be.'ore 
thr nia^^ton a coasting-vessel or on a niercluintman bound to the Farther India 
or [d iiie China Seas. 

No manly man feels any thing of shame in looking back to early struggles 
with adverse circumstances, and no man feels a worthier jiride than when he 
lias ccnquered the obstacles to his progress. Bat i»o one of noble mould 
de.-ires to be loolied upon as having occupied a menial positiosi, as having 
been repressed by a feeling of inferiority, o^r as having suffered the evils of 
l)overty until relief was found at the hand of charity. General Garfield's 
youtii presented no hardships which family love and fanrily energy did 1105, 
overcome; subjected him to no privations which he did not cheerfiilly accept; 
and lel't no memories save those which were recalled with delight and were 
transmitted with profit and with pride. 

Garfield's early opiJortunities for securing an education were extremely 
limited, and yet were sufficient to develop in him au intense desire to learn. 
He could read at three years of age, audi each winter he had the advantage 
of the district school. He read all the books to be found within the circle 
of his acquaiMtance: some of them he got by heart. While yet in childhood 
he was a constant student of the Bible, and became familiair with its litera- 
ture. The dignity and eaFuestness of his speech in his mature? life gave evi- 
dence of this early training. At eighteen years, of age he was able to teach 
school,, and thenceforward his ambition was to obtaiu a college education. To 
this end he bent all his efforts* working in the harvest field, at the carpenter'^ 
fx'nch, and, in the winter season, teaching the ef)mmon schools of the neigh- 
borhood. While thus laboriously occupied he found time to. prosecute hi* 
studies, ami was so successful, that at twenty-two years of age he was able to* 
enter the junior class at Williams College, then under the Presidency of the 
venerable and honored Mark Hopkins, who^ in the fullness of his pov.Jer.s, sur- 
vives the eminent pupil to whom he was oi" inestimable service-. 

The history of Garfield's life to this period pres«ntsno norel features. lie 
had utidoubtedly shown perseverence, self-reliance, self sacrifice,, ants' ambitioni 
— qiralities which, be it said for the honcr of o-urcouatry, are everywhere to- 
be found among the young merv of America. But fro«i his graduation at 
Williams onward to the hour oi his tragical death,. Garfichl's career was emir- 
ncnt and exceptional. Slowly working through his edncatioraal jx^riod, re- 
cciviu'j: his diploma when twen-ty-four yeazs of age, he sct^med at one bound 
>.o spring into conspicuous and brilliant success. Within six years he was 
-successively PresidcTit of a college, State Senator of Ohio, INIajor-General of 
tlie Ainiy of the United States, and liepreseiitative elect to the NatJu>uaS 



BLAINE'S EULOGY ON GARFIELD. G77 

Congress. A combination of honors so varied, so elevated, within a period so 
brief, and to a man so young, is without precedent or parallel in the hi.^tory 
of the country. 

Garfield's army life was begun with no other military knowledge than such 
as he had hastily gained from books in the few months preceding liis niarth 
to the field. Stepping from civil life to the head of a regiment, the first order 
he received when ready to cross the Ohio was to assume command uf a bri- 
gade, and to operate as an independent force in Eastern Kentucky, llis 
immediate duty was to check the advance of Humphrey Marshall, who was 
marching down the Big Sandy with the intention of occupying, in connection 
with other Confederate forces, the entire territory of Kentucky, and of i)re- 
cipitating the State into secession. This was at the close of the year 18GL 
Seldom, if ever, has a young college professor been thrown into a more em- 
barrassing and discouraging position. He knew just enough of military 
science, as he expressed it himself, to measure the extent of his ignorance, 
and with a handful of men he was marching, in rough winter weather, into a 
strange country, among a hostile population, to confront a largely sup:'rior 
force, under the command of a distinguished graduate of West Point, A\h) had 
seen active and important service in two preceding wars. 

The result of the campaign is matter of history. The skill, the endurance, 
the extraordinary energy shown by Garfield, the courage he imparted to his 
men, raw and untried as himself, the measures he adopted to increase his 
force, and to create in the enemy's mind exaggerated estimates of his num- 
bers, bore perfect fruit in the routing of Marshall, the capture of his camp^ 
the dispersion of his force, and the emancipation of an important territory 
from the control of the rebellion. Coming at the close of a long series of dis- 
asters to the Union army, Garfield's victory had an unusual and extraneous 
importance, and in the popular judgment elevated the young commander to 
the rank of a military hero. With less than 2,000 men in his entire com- 
mand, with a mobilized force of only 1,100, without cannon, he had met an 
army of 5,000 and defeated them — driving Marshall's forces successively from 
two strongholds of their own selection, fortified with abundant artillery. 
Major-General Buell, commanding the Department of the Ohio, an ex- 
perienced and able soldier of the regular army, published an order of thanks 
and congratulation on the brilliant result of the Big Sandy campaign, wliich 
would have turned the head of a less cool and sensible man than Garfield. 
Buell declared that his services had called into action the highest qualities of 
a soldier; and President Lincoln supplemented these words of praise by the 
more substantial reward of a brigadier-general's commission, to bear date 
from the day of his decisive victory over Marshall. 

The subsequent military career of Garfield fully sustained its brilliant be^ 
ginning. With his new commission, he was assigned to the command of a 
brigade in the Army of the Ohio, and took part in the second and decisive 



678 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELR 

day's fight in the great battle of ShHoh. The remainder of the year 1862 was 
not especially eventful to Gartiekl, as it was not to the armies with which he 
was serving. His practical sense was called into exercise in completiui; the 
task, assigned him by General Buell,of reconstructing bridges and re-establish- 
ing lines of railway communication for the army. His occupation in this 
useful but not brilliant field was varied by service on court-nuirtiuls of im- 
portance, in which department of duty he won a valuable rqiutation, attracting 
tlie notice and securing the approval of the able and eminent Judge Advocate- 
General of the Army. That of itself was warrant to honorable fame; for 
among the great men who in those trying days gave themselves, with entire 
devotion, to the service of their country, one who brought to that service the 
ripest learning, the most fervid eloquence, the most varied attainments, wha 
labored with modesty and shunned applause, who in the day of triunij)h sat 
reserved and silent and grateful — as Francis Deak in the hour ©f Hungary's 
deliveraijce — was Joseph Holt, of Kentncky, who in his honorable retirement 
enjoys the respect and veneration of all who lore the Union of the States. 

Early in 1863 Garfield v^as assigned to the highly important and responsible 
post of chief-of staff to General Rosecrans, then at the head of the Army of 
the Cuml^erland. Perhaps in a great military campaign no subordinate officer 
requires sounder judgment and quicker knowledge of men than the diiefof- 
htaff to the commanding general. An indiscreet man in such a position can 
sow more discord, breed more jealousy, and disseminate more strife, than any 
other officer in the entire organization. When (leneral Garfield assumed his 
new duties he found various troubles already well developed and seriously 
affecting the value and efficiency of the Army of the Cumberland. The 
energy, the impartiality, and the tact with which he sought to allay these dis- 
sensions and to discharge the duties of his new and trying position will always 
remain one of the most striking proofs of his great versatility. His military 
duties closed on the memorable field of Chickamauga, a field which, however 
disastrous to the Uni«)n arms, gave to him the occasion of Avinning imperish- 
able laurels. The very rare distinction was accorded him of a great promotion 
for his bravery on a field that was lost. President Lincoln appointed him a 
nnijor-general in the Army of the United States for gallant and meritorious 
conduct in the battle of Chickamauga. 

The Army of the Cumberland was reorganized, under the command of 
General Thomas, who promptly offered Garfield one of its divisions. He was 
extremely desirous to accept the ])Osition, but was embarrassed by the fact 
that he had, a year before, been elected to Congress, and the time when he 
must take his seat was drawing near. He preferred to remain in the military 
service, and had within his own breast the largest confidence of success in the 
wider field wliich his new rank opened to him. Balancing the arguments on 
llic one side and the otlier, anxious to determine what was for the best, de- 
sirous above all things to do his patriotic duty, he was decisively influenced 



BLAINE'S EULOGY ON GAEFIELD. 6/9 

by tlio advice of President Lincoln and Secretary Stanton, botli of whom as- 
sured him that he could, at that time, be of especial value in the House of 
Representatives. He resigned liis commission of major-general on the 5th day 
of December, 1863, ana took his seat in the House of ll^'presentatives on the 
7th. He had served two years and four months in the army, and had just 
completed his thirty-second year. 

The Tliirty-eighth Congress is pre-eminently entitled in history to t'.ie desig- 
nation of the War Congress. It was elected wiiilc the war was iiagrant, and 
every member was chosen upon the issues involved in the continuance of the 
struggle. Tlie Thirty-seventh Congress had, indeed, legislated to a large extent 
on war measures but it was chosen before any one believed that t^eeession of 
the St;ites would be actually attempted. Tiie nuignitude of the wi'rk which 
fell upon its successor was unprecedented, both in respect to the vast sums of 
money raised for the support of the army and navy, and of the new and ex- 
traordinary powers of legislation which it was forced to exercise. Only 
twenty-four States were represented, and 182 members w^ere upon its roll. 
Among these were many distinguished party leaders on both sides, veierans in 
the ])ublic service, with established reputations for ability, and with that skill 
which comes only from parliamentary experience. Into this assembhtge of 
men Garfield entered without special preparation, and it might alm.ost be said 
unexpectedly. The question of taking command of a division of troops under 
General Tliomas, or tcking his seat in Congress, was kept open till the last mo- 
ment — so late, indeed, that the resignation of his military commission and his 
appearance in the House were almost contemporaneous. He wore the uniform 
of a major-general of the United States army on Saturday, and on ^londay, 
in civilian's dress, he answered to the roll-call as a Representative in Congress 
from the State of Ohio. 

He was especially fortunate in the constituency which elected him. Des- 
cended almost entirely from New England stock, the men of the Ashtabula 
district were intensely radical on all questions relating to human rights. Well 
educated, thrifty, thoroughly intelligent in affairs, acutely discerning of 
character, not quick to bestow confidence, and slow to withdraw it, they were 
at once the most helpful and most exacting of supporters. Their tenacious 
trust in men in whom they have once confided is illustrated by the unparal- 
leled fact that Elisha Whittlesey, Joshua R. Giddings, and James A. Garfield 
represented the district for fifty four years. 

There is no test of a man's ability in any department of public life more 
severe than service in the House of Representatives; there is no place where 
so little deference is paid to reputation previously acquired, or to eminence 
won outside; no place where so little consideration is shown for the feelings 
or the failures of beginners. What a man gains in the House he gains by 
sheer force of his own character; and if he loses. and falls back he must expect 
no mercy, and will receive no sympathy. It is a field in which the survival 



680 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

■of the strongest is the recognized rule, and where no pretense can deceive and 
no glamour can mi-slead. The real man is discovered, his worth is impartially 
weighed, his rank is irreversibly decreed. 

With possibly a single cxccptiou, Garfield was the youngest member in 
■Uie House wheu he entered, and was but seven years from his college gradua- 
tion. But he had not been in his seat sixty days before his abiUty was re- 
cognized and his place conceded. He stepj^ed to the front with the confidence 
of one who belongeii there. The House was crowded with strong men of both 
parties; nineteen of them hjjve since been transferred to the Senate, and 
many of them have served witli distinction in the gubernatorial chairs of 
their respective StatCvS, and on foreign missions of great consequence; but 
among tliem all none grew so rapidly, none so firmly as Garfield. As is said 
by Trcvclyan of his parliamentary hero, Garfield succeeded " because all the 
world in concert could not have kept him in the background ; and because, 
when once in the front, he played bis part with a prompt intrepidity and a 
•commanding case that were but the outward symptoms of the immense re- 
serves of energy, on which it was in his power to draw." Indeed the appar- 
ently reserved force which Garfield possessed was one of his great character- 
istics. He never did so well but that it seemed he could easily have done 
better. He never expended so' much strength but that he seemed to be hold- 
ing additional power at call. This is one of the liappiest and rarest distinc- 
tions of an effective debater, and often counts for as much in persuading an 
assembly as the eloquent and elaborate argument. 

Tlie great measure of Garfield's fame Avas filled by his service in the House 
of Representatives. His military life, illustrated by honorable performance, 
and rich in promise, was, as he himself -felt, prematurely terminated, and 
necessarily incomplete. Speculation as to what he might have done in a field 
where tire groat prizes are so few can not be profitable. It is sufficient to say 
tl-.at, as a S'ddier, he did his duty bravely ; he did it intelligently ; he won an 
enviable fome, and he retired from the service without blot or breath against 
him. 

As a lawyer, though admirably equipped for tlie profession, he can 
scarcely be said to have entered on its practice. The few efforts he made at 
the bar Avore distinguished by the same high order of talent which he exhib- 
ited on every field where he was put to the test; and if a man may be ac- 
cepted as a competent judge of his own capacities and adaptations, the law 
was the profession to which Garfield should have devoted himself. But fate 
ordained otherwise, and his reputation in history will rest largely upon his 
serviee in the House of Representatives. That service was exceptionally long. 
He was nine times consecutively chosen to the House, an honor enjoyed by 
not more than six other R:!prcsentatives of the more than 5,000 who have 
been elected from the organization of the government to this hour. 

As a parliamentary orator, as a debater on an issue squarely joined, where 



BLAINE'S EULOGY ON GARFIELD. G81 

the position has been chosen and the grouml laid out, Garfield must be 
assigned u very higli rank. More, perhaps, than auy man with whom he was 
associated in public life, he gave careful and systematic study to public 
questions, and he came to every discussion in whicli he took part with elabo- 
rate and complete preparation. He was a steady and indefatigable worker. 
Tliose who imagine that talent or genius can supply^ the place or acliieve the 
results of labor will Knd no encouragement in Garfield's life. In preliminary 
work he was apt, rapid, and skillful. He possessed, in a high degree, the 
power of readily absorbing ideas and facts, and, like Dr. Johnson, had the art 
of getting from a book all that was of value in it by a reading apparantly so 
quick and cursory that it seemed like a mere gl-auce at the table of contents. 
He was a pre-eminently fair and candid man in debate, took no petty advan- 
tage, stoojied to no unworthy meth(»ds, avoided personal allusions, rarely ap- 
pealed to prejudice, did not seek to influence passion. He had a quicker eye 
for the strong point of his adversary than for his weak point, and on his own 
side he so marshaled his weighty arguments as to make his hearers forget any 
possible lack in the complete strength of his position. He had a habit of 
stating his opponent's side with such amplitude of fairness and such liberality 
of concessifui that his followers often complained that he was giving his case 
away. But never in his prolonged participation in the proceedings of the 
House did he give his case away, or fj.il in the judgment of competent and 
impartial listeners to gain the mastery. 

These characteristics, whieh marked Garfield as a great debater, did n/)t, 
however, make him a great parliamentary leader. A parliamentary leader, as 
that term is understood wherever free representative government exists, is 
necessarily and very strictly the organ of his party. An ardent American 
defined the instinctive warmth of patriotism when he offered the toast: "Our 
country always right; but right or wrong, our country." The parliamentary 
leader who has a body of followers that will do and dare and die for the cause, 
is one who believes his party always right ; but right or wrong, is for his party. 
No more important or exacting duty devolves upon him than the selection 
of the field and the time for contest. He must know not merely how to 
strike, but where to strike, and when to strike. He often skillfully avoids the 
strength of his opponent's position and scatters confusion in his ranks, by at- 
tacking an exposed point when really the righteousness of the cause and the 
strength of logical intrenchment are against him. He conquers often both 
against the right and the heavy battalions; as when young Charles Fox, in 
the days of his Toryism, carried the House of Commons against justice, 
against its immemoral rights, against his-own convictions, and in the interest 
of a corrupt administration, in obedience to a tyrannical sovereign, drove. 
Wilkes from the seat to which the electors of Middlesex had chosen him and 
installed Luttrell in defiance, not merely of law, but of public decency. For 
an achievement of that kind Garfield was disqualified — disqualified by the 



G82 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD, 

texture of his mind, by the honesty of his heart, by his conscience, and by 
every instinct and aspiration of bis nature. 

The three most di;5tiiiguished parliamentary leaders hitherto devcloj ed in 
tbis ctmutry are j^Ir. Clay, Mr. Douglas, and Mr. Thaddeus Stevens. Each 
was a man of consummate ability, of great earnestness, of intense personality, 
dilforing widely, each from the others, and yet with a signal trait in common 
— tiie power to command. In tbe give and take of daily discussion, in the art 
of cuntrolling and consolidating reluctant and refractory folh)wers ; in the 
skill to overcome all forms of opposition, and to meet with competency and 
courage the varying phases of unlooked-for assault or unsuspected defection, 
it would be diiiicult to rank with these a fourth name in all our Congressional 
bistory. Lut of these Mr. Clay was the greatest. It would, perhaps, be im- 
possible to find in tbe parliamentary annals of the world a parallel to Mr. 
Clay ia 1841, when at sixty-four years of age he took the control of the 
Whig party from tbe President who bad received their suffrages, against the 
power of Webster in the Cabinet, against the eloquence of Cboate in tbe 
Senate, against tbe herculean efforts of Caleb Cushing and Henry A. Wise 
in tbe House. In unsliared leadership, in tbe pride and plenitude of power, 
be burled against John Tyler, with deepest scorn, the mass of that con- 
quering column which bad swept over the laud in 1840 and drove his ad- 
ministration to seek shelter behind tbe lines of his political foe.s. I\Ir. Doug- 
las achieved a victory scarcely less wonderful, when, in 1854, against tbe se- 
cret desires of a strong administration, against the wise counsel of the older 
chiefs, against the conservative instinct, and even the moral sense of the 
country, he forced a reluctant Congress into a repeal of the Missouri compro' 
misc. Mr. Thaddeus Stevens, in his contests from 18G5 to 18G8, actually ad- 
vanced his parliamentary leadership until Congress tied the bands of the Presi- 
dent, and governed tbe country by its own will, leaving only perfunctory duties 
to be discharged by the Executive. AVith $200,000,000 of patronage in his bands 
at tbe opening of tbe contest, aided by tbe active force of Seward in tbe Cabinet 
and the moral power of Chase on tbe bench, Andrew Johnson could not com- 
mand the support of one-third in either House against tbe parliamentary upris- 
ing of which Thaddeus Stevens was the animating spirit and the unquestioned 
leader. 

From these three great men Garfield differed radically,— differed in tbe 
quality of bis mind, in temperament, in the form and phase of ambition. He 
could not (io what they did, but be could do what they could not, and in tbe 
breadth of bis Congressional work he left that which will longer exert a 
potential influence among men, and which, measured by tbe severe test of 
posthumous criticism, will secure a more enduring and more enviable fame. 

Those unfamiliar witli Garfield's industry, and ignorant of tbe details of 
bis work, may, in some degree, measure them by tbe annals of Congress. No 
one of the generation of public men to which be belonged has contributed so 



BLAINE'S EULOGY OX GARFIELD. 683 

much that will be valuable for future reference. His speeches are numerous, 
many of them brilliant, all of tliem well studied, carefully phrased, and ex- 
haustive of the subject under consideration. Collected from tlie scattered 
pages of ninety royal octavo voluuies of Congressional Ilecord, they would 
present an invaluable compendium of the political history of the most im- 
portant era through which the national government has ever passed. When 
the history of this period shall be impartially written, when war legislation, 
measures of reconstruction, protection of hunum rights, amendments to the 
Constitution, maintenance of public credit, steps toward .specie resumption, 
true theories of revenue maybe reviewed, unsurrounded by prejudice and dis- 
contiected from partisanism, the speeches of Garfield will be estinuited at their 
true value, and will be found to compri.se a vast magazine of fact and argu- 
ment, of clear analysis, and sound conclusion. Indeed, if no other authority 
were accessible, his speeclies in the House of Representatives, from December, 
18G3, to June, 1880, would give a well-connected history and complete defense 
of the important legislation of the seventeen eventful years tliat constitute 
his parliamentary life. Far beyond that, his speeches would be found to 
forecast many great measures yet to be comjjleted — measures which he knew 
were beyond the public opinion of the hour, but whicli he confiileiitly lielieved 
would secure popular approval within the period of his own lifetime, and by 
the aid of his own efforts. 

Differing, as Garfield does, from the brilliant parliamentary leaders, it is 
not easy to find his counterpart anywhere in the records of public life. He 
perhaps more nearly resembles Mr. Seward in his supreme faith in the all- 
conquering power of a principle. He had the love of learning and the patient 
industry of investijjation, to which John Quincy Adams owes his prominence 
and his Presidency. He had some of those ponderous elements of mind 
which distinguished Mr. Webster, and which, indeed, in all our public life 
have left the great Massachusetts Senator withotit an intellectual peer. 

In English parliamentary history, as in our own, the leaders in the House 
of Commons present points of essential difference from Garfield. Rut some 
of his methods recall the best features in the strong, independent course of 
Sir Robert Peel, and striking resemblances are discernible in that most prom- 
ising of modern conservatives, who died too early for his country and his 
fame, the Lord George Bentinck. He had all of Burke's love for the .sublime 
and the beautiful, with, possibly, something of his superabundance; and in 
his faith and his magnanimity, in his power of statement, in his subtle 
an dvsis, in his faultless logic, in his love of literature, in his wealth and 
Avorld of illustration, one is reminded of that English statesman of to-day, 
who confronted with obstacles that would daunt any but the dauntless, re- 
viled by those whom he would relieve as bitterly as by those whose supposed 
rights he is forced to invade, sfill labors with serene courage for the ameliora- 
tion of Ireland, and for the honor of the English name. 



684 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

Garfield's nomination to the Presidency, wliile not predicted or anticipated, 
was not a surprise to tlie country. His prominence in Congress, liis solid 
qualities, his wide reputation, strengthened by his then recent election as 
Senator from Ohio, kept him in the public eye as a man occupying the very 
highest rank among those entitled to be called statesmen. It was not mere 
chance that brought him this high honor. " We must," says Mr Emerson, 
" reckon success a constitutional trait. If Eric is in robust health and has 
slept well, and is at the top of his condition, and thirty years old at his de- 
parture from Greenland, he will steer west, and his ships will reach New- 
foundland. But take Eric out and put in a stronger and bolder man, and 
the ships will sail 600, 1,000, 1,500 miles further and reach Labrador and New 
England. There is no chance in results." 

As a candidate, Garfield steadily grew in popular favor. He was met with a 
storm of detraction at the very hour of his nomination, and it continued with in- 
creasing volume and momentum until the close of his victorious campaign : 

No might nor greatness in mortality 
Can censure 'scape; 'backwounding calumny . 
The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong 
Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue ? 

Under it all he was calm and strong, and confident; never lost his self- 
possession, did no unwise act, spoke no hasty or ill-considered word. Indeed, 
nothing in his whole life is more remarkable or more creditable than his bear- 
ing through those five full months of vituperation— a prolonged agony of trial 
to a sensitive man, a constant and cruel draft upon the powers of moral en- 
durance. The great mass of these unjust imputations passed unnoticed, and 
with the general debris of the campaign fell into oblivion. But in a few in- 
stances the iron entered his soul, and he died with the injury unforgotten, if 
not unforgiven. 

One aspect of Garfield's candidacy was unprecedented. Never before in 
the history of partisan contests in this country had a successful Presidential 
candidate spoken freely on passing events and current issues. To attempt any 
thing of the kind seemed novel, rash, and even desperate. The older class 
of voters recalled the unfortunate Alabama letter, in which Mr. Clay Avas sup- 
posed to have signed his political death-warrant. They remembered also the 
hot-tempered effusion by which General Scott lost a large share of his popu- 
larity before his nomination, and the unfortunate speeches which rapidly con- 
sumed the remainder. The younger voters had seen Mr. Greeley in a series 
of vigorous and original addresses, preparing the pathway for his own defeat. 
Unmindful of these warnings, unheeding the advice of friends, Garfield spoke 
to large crowds as he journeyed to and from New York in August, to a great 
multittidc in that city, to delegations and deputations of every kind that 
called ;it Mentor during the summer and autumn. With innumerable critics, 
watchful and eager to catch a phrase that might be turned into odium or 



BLAINE'S EULOGY ON GAEFIELD. €85 

ridicule, or a sentence that might be distorted to liis own or hh partv'.i i:!J;iry, 
Garfield did not trip or lialt in any one of hisnevoiity siieoches. 'j'ias ficenis 
all the more remarkable when it is remembered that he did not writt' wli;il. he 
said, and yet spoke with such logical consecutivjncvss of thouglit uimI su>;h ad- 
mirable precision of phrase as to defy the accident of nnjrep.,it ,nnu the 
malignity of misrepresentation. 

In the beginning of his Presidential life Garfield's experience did not yield 
him pleasure or satisfaction. The duties that engross so large a poition of 
the President's time were distasteful to him, and were unfavorably contrasted 
with his legislative work "I have been dealing all these years with ideas," 
he impatiently exclaimed one day, "and here I am dealing only with persons, 
I have been heretofore treating of the fundamental principles of fzovcrnuient, 
and here I am considering all day whether A or B shall be appointed to this 
or that office." He was earnestly seeking some practicable way of correcting 
the evils arising from the distribution of overgrown and unwieldly pcitron;;ge — - 
evils always appreciated and often discussed by liini, but whose magnitude 
had been more deeply impressed upon his mind since his accession to the 
Presidency. Had he lived, a comprehensive improvement in the mode of 
appointment and in the tenure of office would have been proposed by him, 
and, with the aid of Congress, no doubt perfected. 

But while many of the executive duties were not grateful to him, ho w.as 
assiduous and conscientious in their discharge. From the very outset lie ex- 
hibited administrative talent of a high order. He grasped the hehn of oflice 
with the hand of a master. In this respect, indeed, he constantly snr; risrd 
many wlio were most intimately associated with him in the government, iuid 
especially those who had feared that he might be lacking in the executive 
faculty. His disposition of business was orderly and rapid. His power of 
analysis, and his skill in classification, enabled liim to dispatch a vast mass 
of detail witli singular promptness and ease. His cabinet meetings were ad- 
mirably conducted. His clear presentation of official subjects, his well con- 
sidered suggt>stion of topics on which discussion was invited, his quick decision 
when all had been heard, combined to show a thoroughness of mental training 
as rare as his natural ability and his facile adaptation to a new and enlarged 
field of labor. 

With perfect comprehension of all the inheritances of the war, witli a cool 
calculation of the obstacles in his way, impelled always by a generous en- 
thusia-^m, Garfield conceived that much might be done by his administrntion 
toward restoring harmony between the different sections of the Union. He 
Avas anxious to go South and speak to the ])eople. As early as April he had 
ineffectnally endeavored to arrange for a trip to Nashville, whither he bad 
been cordi dly invited, and he was again disappointed a few we.'ks later to- 
find that he could not go to South Carolina to attend the centennial celebra- 
tion of the victory of the Cowpens. But for the autumn he definitely counted 



686 LIFE OF JAMES A. GAEFIELD. 

on being present at three memorable assemblies in tlie South— the celebration 
at York town, the opening of the Cotton Exposition at Atlanta, and the meet- 
ing of the Army of the Cumberland at Chattanooga. He was already turning 
over 111 his mind his address for each occasion, and the three taken together, 
he said to a iriend, gave him the exact scope and verge which he needed. At 
Yorktown lie would have before him the associations of a hundred years that 
bound the South and North in the sacred memory of a common danger and a 
common victory. At Atlanta he would present the material interests and the 
industrial development which appealed to the thrift and independence of 
every household, and which should unite the two sections by the instinct 
of self-interest and selfdefense. At Chattanooga he would revive mem- 
ories of the war only to show that after all its disaster and all its suffering, 
the country was stronger and greater, the Union rendered indissoluble, and 
the future, through the agony and blood of one generation, made brighter 
and better for all. 

Garfield's ambition for the success of his administration was high. With 
strong caution and conservatism in his nature, he was in no danger of attempt- 
ing rash experiments or of resorting to the empiricism of stateaman.ship. But 
he believed that renewed and closer attention should be given to questions 
affecting the material interests and commercial prospects of 50,000,000 of peo- 
ple. He believed that our continental relations, extensive and undeveloped 
as they are, involved responsibility, and could be cultivated into profitable 
friendship or be abandoned to harmful indifference or lasting enmity. He be- 
lieved with equal confidence that an essential forerunner to a new era of na- 
tional progress must be a feeling of contentment in every section of the 
Union, and a generous belief that the benefits and burdens of governnienfc 
would be common to all. Himself a conspicuous illustration of what ability 
and ambition may do under republican institutions, he loved his country with 
a passion of patriotic devotion, and every waking thought was given to her 
advancement. He was an American in all his aspirations, and he looked to 
the destiny and influence of the United States with the philosophic composure 
of Jefferson and the demonstrative confidence of John Adams. 

The p.)litical events which disturbed the President's serenity for many 
weeks before that fateful day in July form an important chapter in his career, 
and, in his own judgment, involved questions of principle and of right 
which are vitally essential to the constitutional administration of the Fed- 
eral Government. It would be out of place here and now to speak the lan- 
guage (if controversy, but the events referred to, however they may continue 
to be a source of contention with others, have become, so far as Garfield is 
concerned, as much a matter of history as his heroism at Chickamauga or his 
illustrious service in the House. Detail is not needful, and personal antago- 
nism shall not be rekindled by any word uttered to-day. The motives of 
tho.se opposing him are not to be here adversely interpreted, nor their course 



BLAINE'S EULOGY ON GAEFIELD. " C87 

harslily characterized. But of the dead President this is to be said, and said 
because his own speech is forever silenced, and he can be no more heard ex- 
cept througli tlie fidelity and love of surviving friends: From the beginning 
to the end of tlie controversy lie so much deplored, the President was never for 
one moment actuated by any motive of gain to himself or of loss to others. 
Least of all men did he harbor revenge, rarely did he ever show resentment, 
and malice was not in his nature. He was congenially employed only in the 
exchange of good offices and the doing of kindly deeds. 

There was not an hour, from the beginning of the trouble till the fatal ohot 
entered his body, when the President would not gladly, for the sake of restor- 
ing harmony, have retraced any step he had taken if such reti-acing had 
merely involved consequences personal to himself. The pride of consistency, 
or any sense of supposed liumiliation t'.iat might result from surrendering his 
position, had not a featlier's weight with him. No man was ever less subject 
to such influences from within or from without. But after most anxious de- 
liberation, and the coolest survey of all tlie circumstances, lie solem)Hy believed 
that the true prerogatives of th« Executive were involved in the issue which 
had been raised, and tliat he would be unfaithful to his supreme obligation if 
he failed to maintain in all their vigor the constitutional rights and dignities 
of his great office. He believed tliis in all the convictions of conscience when 
in sound and vigorous health, and he believed it in his suffering and prostra- 
tion in the last conscious thought which his wearied mind bestowed on the 
transitory struggles of life. 

More than this need not be said. Less than this could not be said. Jus- 
tice to the dead, the highest obligation that devolves upon tlie living, demands 
the declaration that, in all the bearings of the subject, actual or po:~sible, the 
President was content in his mind, justified in his conscience, immovable in 
his conclusions. 

The religious element in Garfield's character was deep and earnest. In 
his early youth he espoused the faith of the Disciples, a sect of that great 
Baptist communion whicli, in different ecclesiastical establishments, is 
so numerous and so influential throughout all parts of the United States. 
But the broadening tendency of his mind and his active spirit of inquiry were 
early api)arent, and carried him beyond tlie dogmas of sect and the restraints 
of association. In selecting a college in which to continue his education, he 
rejected Bethany, though ])resided over by Alexander Campbell, the greatest 
preacher of his Church. His reasons were characteristic : first, that Bethany 
leaned too heavily toward slavery; and, second, that being himself a Disciple, 
and the son of Disciple parents, he had but little acquaintance with people of 
other beliefs, and he thought it would make him more liberal, quoting his own 
words, both in his religiuus and genenii views, to go into a new circle and be 
under new influences. 

The liberal tendency which he anticipated as the result of wider cult- 



088 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD, 

lire was fully realize<l. He was emancipated from mere sectarian belief, 
and with eujror interest puslied his investigations in the direction of modern 
progressive thought. He followed with quickening step in the paths of ex- 
plonition and speculation so fearlessly trodden by Darwin, by Huxley, by 
Tyndall, and by other living scientists of the radical and advanced type. 
His own Church, binding its disciples by no formulated creed, but accepting 
the ()k\ and New Testaments as the Word of God with unbiased liberality of 
private interpretation, favored, if it did not stimulate, the spirit of investiga- 
tion. Its members profess with sincerity, and profess only, to be of one mind 
and one faith with those who immediately followed the Master, and who 
were first called Christians at Antioch. 

But however high Garfield reasoned of "fixed fate, free will, foreknowl- 
edge absolute," he was never separated from the Church of the Disciples in 
his affections and in his associations. For him it held the ark of the cov- 
enant. To him it was the gate of heaven. The world of religious belief is 
full of solecisms and contradictions. A philosophic observer declares that 
men by the thousand will die in defense of a creed whose doctrines they do 
not comprehend, and whose tenets they habitually violate. It is equally 
true that men, by the thousand, will cling to church organizations with in- 
stinctive and undying fidelity when their belief, in maturer years, is radically 
different from that which inspired them as neophytes. 

But after this range of speculation, and this latitude of doubt, Garfield 
came back always with freshness and delight to the simpler instincts of re- 
ligious faith, which, earliest implanted, longest survive. Not many weeks 
before his assassination, walking on the banks of the Potomac Avith a friend, 
and conversing on those topics of personal religion, concerning wiiich noble 
natures have an unconquerable reserve, he said that he found the Lord's 
Prayer, and the simi)le petitions learned in infancy, infinitely restful to him, 
not merely in their stated repetition, but in their casual and frequent recall as 
he went about the daily duties of life. Certain texts of Scripture had a very 
strong hold,on his memory and his heart. He heard, while in Edinburgh, 
.some years ago, an eminent Scotch preacher who prefaced his sermon with 
reading the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, which book had been 
the subject of careful study with Garfield during all his religious life. He 
was greatly impressed by the elocution of the preacher, and declared that it 
had imparted a new and deeper meaning to the majestic utterances of St. 
Paul. He referred often, in after years, to that memorable service, and dwelt 
with exaltation of feeling upon the radiant promise and the assured hope with 
which the great apostle of the Gentiles was "persuaded that neither death, 
nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor 
things to come, nor height, nor deptli.nior any other creature, shall he able to 
separate us from tiie love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." 

Tiie crowning characteristics of General Garfield's religious opinions, as, 



BLAINE'S EULOGY ON GARFIELD. 689 

indeed, of all his opinions, was his liberality. In all things he had charity. 
Tolerance was of his nature. He respected in others the qualities which he 
possessed himself— sincerity of conviction and frankness of expression. With 
him the inquiry was not so much what a man believes, but does he believe it? 
The lines of his friendship and his confidence encircled men of every creed, 
and men of no creed ; and to the end of his life, on his ever-lengthening list 
of friends, were to be found the names of a pious Catholic priest and of an 
honest-minded and generous-hearted freethinker 

On the morning of Saturday, July 2, the President was a contented and 
happy man— not in an ordinary degree, but joyfully, almost boyishly happy. 
On his way to the railroad station, to which he drove slowly, in conscious 
enjoyment of the beautiful morning, with an unwonted sense of leisure and a 
keen anticipation of pleasure, his talk was all in the grateful and gratulatory 
vein. He felt that after four months of trial his administration was strong in 
its grasp of affairs, strong in popular favor, and destined to grow stronger ; 
that grave difficulties confronting him at his inauguration had been safely 
passed; that trouble lay behind him and not before him ; that he was soon to 
meet the wife whom he loved, now recovering from an illness which had but 
lately disquieted and at times almost unnerved him; that he was going to his 
Alma Mater to renew the most cherished associations of -his young manhood, 
and to exchange greetings with those whose deepening interest had followed 
every step of his upward progress from the day he entered upon his college 
course until he had attained the loftiest elevation in the gift of his country- 
men. 

Surely if happiness can ever come from the honors or triumphs of this 
world, on that quiet July morning, James A. Garfield may well have been a 
happy man. No foreboding of evil haunted him; no slightest premonition 
of danger clouded his sky. His terrible fate was upon him in an instant. 
One moment he stood erect, strong, confident, in the years stretching peace- 
fully out before him. The next he lay wounded, bleeding, helpless, doomed 
to weary weeks of torture, to silence, and the grave. 

Great in life, he was surpassingly great in death. For no cause, in the 
very frenzy of wantonness and wickedness, by the red hand of murder, he 
was thrust from the full tide of this world's interest, from its hopes, its aspi- 
rations, its victories, into the visible presence of death — and he did not quail. 
Not alone for the one short moment in which, stunned and dazed, he could 
give up life, hardly aware of its relinquishment, but through days of deadly 
languor, through weeks of agony, that was not less agony because silently 
borne, with clear sight and calm courage, he looked into his open grave. 
What blight and ruin met his anguished eyes, whose lips may tell ! — What 
brilliant broken plans ! what bafiled, high ambitions! what sundering of strong, 
warm, manhood's friendships! what bitter rending of sweet household ties! 
Behind him a proud, expectant nation, a great host of sustaining friends, a 

44 



690 LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

cherished and happy mother, wearing the full, rich honors of her early toil 
and tears ; the wife of his youth, whose whole life lay in his ; the little boys 
not yet emerged from childhood's day of frolic; the fair, young daughter; 
the sturdy sons just springing into closest companionship, claiming every day 
and every day rewarding a father's love and care ; and in his heart the eager, 
rejoicing power to meet all demand. Before him desolation and great dark- 
ness! And his soul was not shaken. His countrymen were thrilled with 
instant, profound, and universal sympathy. Masterful in his mortal weak- 
ness, he became the center of a nation's love, enshrined in tlie in-avers of a 
world. But all the love and all the sympathy could not share with him his 
suffering. He trod the winepress alone. With unfaltering front he faced 
death. With unfailing tenderness he took leave of life. Above the demoniac 
hiss of the assassin's bullet he heard the voice of God. With simple resigna- 
tion he bowed to the divine decree. 

As the end drew near, his early craving for the sea returned. The stately 
mansion of power had been to him the wearisome hospital of pain, and he 
begged to be taken from its prison walls, from its oppressive, stifling air, from 
its homelessness and its hopelessness. Gently, silently, the love of a great 
people bore the pale sufferer to the longed-for healing of the sea, to live or to 
die, as God should will, within sight of its heaving billows, within sound of 
its manifold voices, with wan, fevered face tenderly lifted to the cooling breeze, 
he looked out wistfully upon the ocean's changing wonders, — on its far sails, 
whitening in the morning light ; on its restless waves, rolling shoreward to 
break and die beneath the noonday sun; on the red clouds of evening, arch- 
ing low to the horizon ; on the serene and shining pathway of the stars. Let 
us think that his dying eyes read a mystic meaning which only the rapt 
and parting soul may know. Let us believe that in the silence of the reced- 
ing world he heard the great waves breaking on a farther shore, and felt 
already upon his wasted brow the breath of the eternal morning. 



THE 



LIFE AND TRIAL 



GUITEAU THE ASSASSIK, 



EMBRACING 



A SKETCH OF HIS EARLY CAREER ; HIS DASTARDLY ATTACK UPON THE 
PRESIDENT ; THE CONDUCT OF THE MURDERER IN PRISON ; HIS 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY ; THE STRANGE DRAMA OF THE COURT-ROOM ; 
THE TESTIMONY OF EXPERTS AND CELEBRATED WITNESSES ; 
THE PROGRESS OF THE JUDICIAL PROCEEDINGS ; STRIK- 
ING SCENES OF THE TRIAL; THE VERDICT 

AND 

THE SENTENCE OF DEATH. 



JOHN CLARK RIDPATH, LL. D., 

LIFE AND WORK OF GARFIELD : A POPULAR HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, ETG 



ILLUSTRATED. 



COPYRIGHTED, 1882, BY J. T, JONES. 




GL-iiJ,AL' AX TIME OF AKREST. 




GUITEAU MAKING HIS STATEMENT IN PRISON. 



THE LIFE AND TRIAL 



GUITEAU THE ASSASSIN. 



WHEN on the morning of Jnly 2, immediately after Presi- 
dent Garfield was .shot down, Charles J. Guiteai' was 
.seized as the a.s.sassin and hurried away to the police .station, a let- 
ter was found on his person, giving his own interpretation of tlip 
crime which he had committed. It was as follows: 

''July 2, 1881. 
" To the White House: The President's tragic death was a sad necessity; 
but it will unite the Republican party and save the republic. Life is a 
flimsy dream, and it matters little when one goes. A human life is of 
small value. During the war thousands of brave boys went down Avith- 
out a tear. I presume the President was a Christian, and that he will 
be happier in Paradise than here. It will be no worse for Mrs. Garfield, 
dear soul, to part with her husband this way than by natural death. He 
is liable to go at any time, anyway. I had no ill will toward the Presi- 
dent. His death was a political necessity. I am a lawyer, a theologian, 
and a politician. I am a Stalwart of the Stalwarts, I was with Gen- 
eral Grant and the rest of our men in New York during the canvass. I 
have some papers for the press which I .shall leave with Byron Andrews 
and his co-journalists, at 1420 New York Avenue, Avliere he and the re- 
porters can see them. I am going to the jail. 

"Charles Guiteau." 

In addition to this audacious and in.sane communication, a letter 
was found in the street, near where Guiteau was arrested, addrcs.sed 
thu.s: " Please deliver at once to General Sherman (or his first as- 



G94 THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

h^istant in charge of the War Department)." The letter itself was 
as follows: 

'To General Sherman: I have just shot the President. I shot him 
several times, as I wished him to die as easily as possible. His death was 
a political necessity. I am a lawyer, theologian, and politician. I am a 
Stalwart of the Stalwarts. I was with General Grant and the rest of our 
men in New York during the canvass. I am going to tiie jail. Please 
order out the troops and take possession of the jail at once. 

"Very respectfully, Chaiiles Guiteau." 

Thus was the atrocious crime at once and openly avowed by the 
wretch who did the deed. Within tw^o minutes after President 
Garfield fell bleeding on the floor of the depot, all doubt as to who 
had perpetrated the crime was at an end. Far as the lightning's 
wing could bear the news, the name of Guiteau was made instantly 
and forever infamous. The assassin was hurried away without re- 
sistance or delay to the police head-quarters, at the corner of Penn- 
sylvania Avenue and Four-and-a-half Street. So rapidly was this 
movement executed that the gathering crowds did not appreciate 
who it was or what was done. On the police books in the office 
the following historical entry was made : 

"Charles Guiteau. Arrested at 9:25,a. m., July 2, 1881, for 
SHOOTiNo President Garfield ; aged 36 ; white. Born in the 
United States, and a lawyer by profession; aveight 130 pounds; 
HAS dark brown iiair : thin whiskers; a sallow complexion; 

DRESSED IN A DARK SUIT, WITH A BLA.CK SLOUCH HAT." 

The prisoner was carefully searched and then placed in one of 
the cells. Public curiosity at once rose to the highest pitch to 
learn something of the audacious villain and of the motives which 
had impelled him to the act. On the former subject the country in 
a few hours became a great intelligence office, and the whole story 
<jf Guiteau's life was soon drawn from the shadows and hung where 
the millions could read. It was for the most part a tale of folly, ig- 
nominy, shame, crime, erratic enterprises, and some unmistakable 
traces of insanity. The family home of the assassin was at Free- 
port, Illinois. His parents and kinsfolk had been eccentric people — 



LECTURER AND LAWYER. 695 

some of them crazy. About 1856, L. W. Guiteau, the father of the 
prisoner, left Freeport, taking his son with him, and joined the 
Oneida Community, in the State of New York. The Guiteaus arc 
all preeminently a " religious " lot, whose knowledge of God is in- 
finite, and whose sympathy with man is zero. The father of the 
assassin remained with the Oneida Community but a short time, 
and then w^ent back to his old home at Freeport. The son re- 
mained in the Community several years, and was next found in 
Chicago as a lawyer. When a boy, and up to the time of his ar- 
rival in Chicago, he had been known as Charles Jules Guiteau, but 
he changed his name, dropping the " Jules " soon after reaching 
that city. He visited Washington about 1879, and lectured in 
Lincoln Hall on " The Second Advent," in which he was at that 
time a professed believer. Gentlemen in that city who met him 
then pronounced him a lunatic on the subject of religion. 

A short time after this episode Guiteau went to New York, where 
he made a pretense of practicing law. He was by nature something 
of a shyster — the soul of a mink inhabiting the body of a grown-up 
gamin. His legal duties consisted chiefly in taking claims to col- 
lect on shares — namely, to receive for his services one-half of the 
proceeds. Guiteau generally managed to make sufficient collec- 
tions to secure his half, but the client never obtained any thing. 
By and by, the Herald exposed the whole proceeding, and the re- 
sult was that Guiteau found New York an uncongenial place, and 
went West, finally settling down in Chicago as a lawyer. From 
this point he wrote to James Gordon Bennett demanding |100,000 
for libel, but failed to get the money. He, however, wrote again 
to Bennett, intimating that if he would engage in a certain news- 
paper enterprise in Chicago with him (Guiteau), the claim for 
^100,000 could be wiped out! 

After a season Guiteau conceived that his legal services were 
needed at IMilwaukee. His name was inscribed upon an old sign as 
Charles J. Guiteau. He claimed ten years' practice in New York 
and Chicago. Interviews W' ith prominent gentlemen of IMilwaukee 
who knew Guiteau well, established the fact that he had been gen- 
erally considered by the few who formed his acquaintance as cither 



^96 THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

a very vicious person or else one who was insane. He was very 
erratic in his business, talk, and general relations. Among other 
things he wrote a good deal on questions of morals. 

Indeed, he came to consider himself a great writer, a philosopher 
whose mission it was to change the face of civilization. He pub- 
lished a pamphlet on " The Second Coming of Christ," which was 
exposed in the show window of Jansen & McClurg rather as a curi- 
osity than because of any possible mercantile or literary value which 
the document might possess. The noted " author," who was de- 
scribed as going about with his hair brushed up in a wild sort of a 
way, next became a lecturer. His speech, or whatever it was, was 
advertised as being by " the Hon. Charles J. Guiteau, the eloquent 
Chicago lawyer. Subject: 'A Reply to Infidelity.' An address of 
profound thought, highly praised by the Eastern press." With tliis 
piece of odd literature which so thundered in the index, the uncaught 
Bedlamite went from city to city, hiring halls for which he never 
paid, contracting board bills for which he sometimes left a coat and 
sometimes merely his compliments, and generally gaining the rep- 
utation of being a semi-lunatic, not w^holly of the harmless breed. 
In this way he ran down in spirals to the level of what is known 
in the unclassical lexicography of the times as a " dead-beat " — a 
gaunt creature of seedy intellect, no morals, and perennial hunger. 

Such was the condition of Guiteau when the Presidential cam- 
paign of 1880 was opened. An excitement of this sort furnishes an 
excellent opportunity for social corks with certain specks of rotten- 
ness in them to bob up to the surface. The credentials of political 
evangelists are not very closely inspected. The doctrine of "Any 
thing to make a vote " generally prevails over any small mutterings 
of conscience that may yet be heard as to the means by which the 
vote is to be obtained. The chairman of the central committee is 
expected to carry the State ; to do it honestly if he can, but to carry 
the State. To this end every thing is subordinated, from the gamin 
to the thug. Javert is bought up with a fee. Gavroche is ap- 
pointed to see what is going on. Eponine is sent into the room 
of Marius, and Thernadier is let out of the sewer. Charles Jules 
Guiteau entered the campaign. He wrote a speech long enough to 



ELECTS GAEFIELD PRESIDENT. 697 

fill two pages of " brief." It was a speech in favor of Garfield. 
Guiteau was for Garfield : and a foreign appointment. He went into 
New York and offered his services. What he did is not very 
clearly known. He drifted around to several points, hanging to 
the frazzles of the political under-skirt until the campaign was 
closed. Garfield w^as elected, and Guiteau did it! It only re- 
mained to recognize and reward him in a manner commensurate 
with his merits. The English or Austrian mission would suffice. 
Missing that, some less conspicuous position would be accepted. 
The Paris consulate, though not an ambassadorial office, would in 
some measure compensate his services, as it would bring him into 
contact with the best society of Europe, et cetera. 

After the inauguration of President Gurfield, his great supporter, 
Guiteau, was promptly on the ground. He haunted the White 
House. He met the President, who referred him to Secretary 
Blaine. Blaine had nothing for him. Still Guiteau hung on. He 
oscillated between the Presidential mansion and the Department 
of State. He got hungry. The wolf in him began to growl. Then 
he felt that he had a mission. The country was about to be ruined. 
Especially was the Republican party about to be disrupted, and 
Guiteau must prevent it. He who began as a theologian, then be- 
came an author, an evangelist, a lecturer, a politician, must now 
become a hero, maybe a martyr. The President of the United 
States must be " removed." Garfield was the stumbling-block, and 
God had selected the toe of Guiteau to kick it out of the way. 
And the rest is knoAvn. It is not the purpose at present to discuss 
in extenso the antecedent forces which induced the assassination of 
the President of the United States. 

One of the first questions to which public attention was directed, 
was the mental condition of the man who committed the murderous 
deed. Prima facie it was a case of insanity ; for avhy should any 
one shoot the President? As soon as the fact of Guiteau's office- 
seeking came out, the conditions of the problem changed, and there 
was a prima facie case of spite and revenge, the very motives of 
murder. A third thought, however, contradicted this; for why 
should a disappointed office-seeker shoot the President? Mr. 



G9S THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

Blaine was the man to shoot, and Guiteau knew this as well as any 
body. He understood perfectly well that if the Secretary of State 
would name him for the Paris consulate, he would be promptly 
appointed. In this line also ran the fourth thought, namely, that 
the assassin had not yet abandoned his hope of the foreign mission, 
and no other than a stark madman would have dreamed of hurry- 
ing up an appointment by shooting the very man who was to give 
it! Against this, however, was a fifth consideration of no little 
importance, to wit, this : Lunatics, when about to perpetrate a 
crime, do not, as a general rule, forecast the results or take precau- 
tions against the consequences of what they are about to do. This 
trait of blind indifference to results Guiteau did not manifest — at least 
not in full measure. He did to some extent forecast, and attempt 
to trammel up the consequence of his deed. A few days before the 
assassination he visited the jail and made an inspection of it with 
an evident view, as afterwards appeared, of determining in advance 
the security of the building against the possible assault of a mob. 
Moreover, before the shooting he hired a hackman to be in readi- 
ness at the depot to carry him away rapidly to a designated spot at 
the cemetery — a movement which evidently contemplated a plan 
of escape. Last of all, to these facts should be added Guiteau's 
explanation of these precautionary measures, which was to the effect 
that he only desired to be secure until public opinion, which would 
at the first be greatly shocked, might have time to redd in his favor / 
These five or six elementary considerations arc, and will ever remain, 
the real fundamentals in the question of the sanity or insanity of 
the man who did the deed of the 2d of July. To these must, of 
course, be added the story of the assassin's previous life, and to a 
certain small degree the opinions of men who have been placed in 
a position to have large observation of the character and conduct 
of insane people. 

Guiteau was transferred as soon as practicable from the police 
liead-quarters to the jail, where he was put in a cell. One of the 
first things he did was to seek an interview with the District At- 
torney, Col. George B, Corkhill, who at once repaired to the prison. 
Here, together with a stenographer, he was shown into the prison- 



TELLS HIS MOTIVES. Cm 

er's cell and the three were locked in. Guiteau thereupon com- 
menced the conversation by saying that he wanted to set the matter 
straight in the mind of the District Attorney. He wanted his 
motive clearly understood as to the circumstances surrounding the 
crime. 

"What was your motive?" asked Corkhill. 

" It was just what I said it was in ray letter to the public," re- 
sponded the assassin. " I attempted to kill Garfield for the good 
of the Republican party, of which I am a member. I attempted to 
kill him because I was a Stalwart, because I thought I would in 
that way make Arthur President and aid the party. I am only 
sorry to hear that I was not at once successful. I hope, however, 
that he will die, so that I may have the pleasure of success ; I did n't 
want him to linger in pain. I wanted to shoot him dead. I regret 
his sufferings, although I would not regret his death." 

"' Do you realize what a terrible crime you have attempted, per- 
haps succeeded in committing?" said the District Attorney. 

" Yes ; but I do not consider it a crime. It was a political ne- 
cessity." 

" Well, permit me to assure you," said Corkhill, " that it is re- 
garded outside as a dastardly crime. It is regarded as so impor- 
tant that every one who is ev^en suspected of being your accomplice 
is arrested as an accomplice. You know, I suppose, that it is be- 
lieved outside that you had accomplices. You know the stories of 
your having a carriage waiting, and of your having companions in 
and around the station." 

"Are all those things said?" he asked. 

" Yes," said Corkhill, 

" Then you had better let me tell you about myself up to to- 
day." 

Thereupon he talked for three hours about his antecedents and 
his actions since he had been in the city. Practically all that he 
said is hereafter given in his autobiography All that passed was 
taken down by the stenographer, who also induced Guiteau to write 
a short letter on general topics in order to secure a specimen of 
his handwriting, and the interview was ended. The information 



700 THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

thus obtained from the assassin was laid before the Cabinet, and 
then filed to be used in the prosecution of the criminal. 

In the early days of July there was considerable danger that 
Guiteau would be mobbed. A mob is an animal which knows no 
difference between a crazy man and a philosopher. It is a beast 
which devours alike the idiot and the sage. Fortunately the 
American mob is only a specter which rarely materializes. Down 
with the mob. 

Meanwhile public attention was directed to the wounded Presi- 
dent, and the desperate wretch was measurably left alone. He 
was kept in close confinement. No one except the officials was 
allowed to see him. All his mail was arrested and examined, an<:l 
every measure was taken to determine the nature and extent oi 
the alarming wound which had been inflicted on American society. 
The more the matter was probed the more it became established 
that Guiteau had acted alone. All stories about accomplices and 
about men having been seen with him previous to the crime were 
proved to be false. All such reports were traced to irresponsible 
parties seeking notoriety. It was plain, and could be accepted as 
a final fact, that the assassin had concocted the deed himself, and 
never communicated by even a hint his purpose to any one. De- 
tectives who visited him in prison usually reported him crazy, but 
the people generally would not accept this theory, and there was 
a loud demand that he should be held responsible for his act. 

Two persons cultivate the acquaintance of the notorious; namely, 
the photographer and the newspaper scribe. The one comes to as- 
certain what there is in the face of the famous (or infamous) celeb- 
brity, and the other to find out what there is in his brains. The 
one comes to make him sit, and the other to make him talk. To 
the newspaper man the talker is a well-spring of pleasure, and to 
the photographer the sitter is an everlasting delight. Guiteau both 
talked and sat. C. M. Bell, the Washington photographer, and his 
assistant, Dodge, came and drew his picture with the sunlight. 
Think of Science squatting down and using a pencil of sunshine 
to paint the face of Charles Jules Guiteau ! Michael Angelo mold- 
ing the head of a toad with a paste of diamonds ! 



SITS FOR HIS PICTURE. 701 

The story of the making of Guiteau's counterfeit illustrates the 
man. The artist came, and the prisoner at first objected to hav- 
ing the picture taken, saying he desired to have the work done in 
first-class style, by the best photographer in the country ; but after 
being informed that Bell was one of the best, he consented. Bell 
placed his instrument in the rotunda of the jail and sent for Gui- 
teau. He was brought down from his cell by General Crocker 
and his assistants. He immediately walked up to the photog- 
rapher and said: "I am the person who wants his photograph. 
Now I want you to do me full justice. See that you get the cor- 
rect expression of my eyes." He buttoned up his coat, brushed 
back his hair with his hands, and arranged his necktie just as any 
other person would do who was preparing for a sitting. 

He took a position standing by a chair, with his head thrown 
back; and assuming the air of a man of great importance, he in- 
quired if that was not an excellent position. 

Dodge told him that he was standing rather stiif, and that he 
should place himself in a perfectly easy position. 

Guiteau then remarked that he supposed he (Dodge) knew his 
business, and that he could arrange him in such a way as to suit 
himself. What he wanted was a good picture, and that they should 
be very careful about getting the correct expression of his eyes. 
Eight different styles of pictures were taken, showing him stand- 
ing with his hat on and off, and sitting, with full face and profile. 
After each sitting, when the photographer would take out the 
slides to be examined, Guiteau would anxiously inquire how that 
looked — if the eyes were all right, etc. 

One fly brings a swarm. In proportion as the people began to 
believe in the recovery of the President they became willing to 
believe that Guiteau was a madman ; and then other madmen 
swarmed out of the darkness. You can no more tell where a fool 
comes from than you can tell where a centipede was hatched. You 
sit down on a log in the woods to write a verse, and here comes your 
centipede. From what village does he hail ? Who was his ances- 
tor? Where does he go to if you kill him? Who made the centi- 
pede, anyhow? And what for? A great number of this breed 



702 THE IJFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

crawled into Washington. One came on the morning of the 5th of 
July. He said he was from King William County, Virginia, and 
that his name was Daniel McNamara. He Avent to the police head- 
quarters and inquired for the residence of Secretary Blaine. Some- 
thiug in the man's manner excited suspicion, and the jjolice inquired 
what he wanted with Blaine. McNamara said he was specially com- 
missioned by God Almighty to kill Blaine, and he had come to 
do it. A company of spiritualists had selected him for that high 
office. The police ambulance was immediately summoned, and the 
lunatic was hurried over to the Insane Asylum. It was the first 
of many such adventures. All the cranks who thus came out 
into the sunshine Avere divinely commissioned. God had sent 
them to a sinful world. Abraham offered up Isaac, and they 
must offer up somebody. Such was the meter which the jjoor 
idiots piped in the streets of the Capital of the United States of 
America in the summer of 1881. 

On the 7th of July it was given out by District Attorney Cork- 
hill that formal proceedings against Guiteau would not be begun 
until the result of the injury done to the President should be de- 
termined. The assassin had meanwhile completed the recital of 
the story of his life in a succession of interviews with the officers, 
and the details of the crime had in like manner been developed to 
the smallest particular. As for the rest, Guiteau was shut away 
from public inspection almost as completely as he was excluded 
from public sympathy. His confinement was rigorous. He ex- 
hibited a feverish anxiety to hear the news; but nothing in the 
shape of papers or conversation was permitted. He was told by 
the officei"s that the President Avas not dead, and he expressed his 
regrets. He hoped that Garfield might die, in order that the Re- 
})ublican party might be saved from disruption and the country 
from anarchy. No shadow of regret or remorse was at any time 
noticeable in his speech or actions. Though sore anxiety Avas ob- 
served as it respected the danger of a mob, his chief concern Avas, 
and continued to be, on the question of the notoriety which the 
deed had excited. In proportion as any circumstance indicated 
that the people Avere talking about him, he became exhilarated, and 



PROVRS A COWARD. 703 

as the indications pointed to a popular indifference concerning him 
and his work, his spirits sank and he grew morose and gloomy. 
Egotism was, and ever afterwards remained, the sole gauge of 
this strange desperado's menta-1 state. 

One of the traits exhibited by Guiteau, both before his trial 
and during its continuance, was cowardice. There was never any 
show of the bully about him. It was evident that he was below 
the average in the matter of physical courage. In the transfer 
from the j)olice head-quarters to the jail, on the day of the shoot- 
ing, he showed symptoms of bodily fear. He was agitated. He 
pulled his hat over his eyes. He besought the officers to hurry 
forward. His glance right and left indicated alarm and excite- 
ment. Once safely entombed in the jail he grew more calm, and 
sometimes exhibited the nonchalance of a loafer sitting on the 
back bench in a club-room. On the 8th of July, a semi-official 
report of Mr. Brooks, Chief of the Secret Service, was given out 
in an interview, and the public was authoritatively informed that 
Guiteau had had no confederates in the commission of the crime. 

The assassin had two griefs to complain of: One was that his 
cell was small and hot, and the other that the food allowed him 
was not of a sort to satisfy the palate of a gentleman. Not much 
attention was paid to this "injustice" on the part of the Govern- 
ment, and the prisoner was left to make the most of the situation 
and surroundings. An incident of the 10th of July is worth re- 
peating. It is reported in the words of Col. Corkhill, the District 
Attorney. He says: 

" As I was writing down the words flowing from his [Guiteau'.s] lips, 
he suddenly grasped a pen as though it was a dagger, and, brandishing 
it in the air, brought it down just in front of my nose. I was startled. 
I thought he intended to stab me in the face, and jumped back sud- 
denly. Then I saw he had had no intention of hurting me. He had 
speared on the point of the pen a spider which had spun a web around a 
little fly. I said 'What are you doing?' He said 'I saw the spider 
entangling the fly and I wanted to watch him eat it up.' So he held 
them up before his face till the spider commenced to eat the fly, then I 
said: 'It will take him twenty minuted to swallow it. I have not time 



704 THE LIFE AJ^D TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

to wait for you. Put it down and go on with your story.' Very reluc- 
tantly he put it down on the floor by his feet. He never lifted his eyes 
from the spot until the fly had disappeared down the spider's throat, 
and the spider had bobbed up serenely. He fairly gloated over the little 
tragedy. 'There's something miasmatic about the wretch,' he ran on, 
* he is so sanguinary — so low-toned — so debased in his nature that he has 
a debilitating efiect upon you." 

A special dispatch of the 11th of July to a leading newspaper 
is specially interesting as tending to show the shifting and un- 
certain character of public opinion, in respect to the mental con- 
dition of Guiteau. The dispatch said : 

"There is good reason to believe that should the President recover, 
as seems probable, the Government will choose to consider Guiteau in- 
sane, and will procure his incarceration for life, in the Government 
Hospital for the Insane, just outside of Washington." 

Precisely how it was that the contingency of the President's 
recovery was to determine the question of the prisoner's sanity or 
insanitv is more perhaps than any uninspired layman could Avell 
discover. There is, however, little doubt that this unsophisticated 
dispatch was a fair statement of the truth as conditioned by ex- 
isting circumstances in the middle of July. If the President gets 
well, Guiteau is insane and shall be lodged in the asylum! If the 
President dies, Guiteau is sane and shall go to the gibbet ! 

One of the features of the assassin's imprisonment was the receipt 
of great numbers of letters. Every mail brought a large batch of 
nondescript communications from all quarters of the compass. 
Most of the missives were couched in the language of denuncia- 
tion and threats. The West contributed more than the East. 
Nearlv all the epistles were characterized by the syntax of the 
unhappy and the orthography of brigandage. Guiteau could 
hardly have been flattered by the general tone of his correspond- 
ence. Chicago contributed largely to this kind of literature. One 
writer addressed Guiteau as " Villian," and then proceeded to as- 
sure him that there were 2,500 people in that city who had deter- 
mined that he should die no matter whether he was insane or not. 




JUDGE WALTP^R S. COX 




I 1. ( Ul.KUIl L 



706 THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

now,' was a pure fiction. Ilis only words at the commission of the deed 
were: 'Don't let them hurt me. Take me to the jail quick.'- 1 think 
I have told you this before, and you will find various facts among those 
recounted in what I gave the jiress that I have told you at various times, 
•but I thought b^st to put it out all at once in a consecutive manner." 

The following, then, arc the facts as reported by Col. Corkhill : 
" Charles Guiteau came to Washington City Sunday evening, March 
6, 1881, and stopped at the Ebbitt House, remaining only one day. He 
then secured a room in another part of the city and has boarded and 
roomed at various places, full details of which I have. Wednesday, May 
18, 1881, the assassin determined to murder the Presivient. He had 
neither money nor pistol at the time. About the last of May he went 
into O'Meara's store, corner of Fifteenth and F Streets, this city, and 
examined some pistols, asking for the largest caliber. He was shown 
two, similar in caliber and only different in price. Wednesday, June 8, 
he purchased the pistol which he used, for which he paid ten dollars, he 
having in the meantime borrowed fifteen dollars of a gentleman in this 
city, on the plea that he wanted to pay his board bill. On the same 
evening, about 7 o'clock, he took his pistol and went to the foot of 
Seventeenth Street and practiced firing at boards, firing ten shots. He 
then returned to his boarding place, wiped the pistol dry and wrapped it 
in his coat, and waited his opportunity. Sun(hiy morning, June 12, he 
was sitting in Lafayette Park and saw the President leave for the Chris- 
tian Church, on Vermont Avenue, and he at once returned to his room, 
obtained his i)istol, put it in his hip-pocket, and followed the President 
to church. He entered the church, but found that he could not kill him 
there without danger of killing some one else. He noticed that the 
President sat near a window. After church he made an examination 
of the window, and found that he could reach it without any trouble, and 
that from this point he could shoot tlie President through the head 
without killing any one else. The following Wednesday he went to the 
church, examined the location and window, and became satisfied that he 
could accomplish his purpose, and he determined, therefore, to make the 
attempt at the church the following Sunday. He learned from the 
papers that the President would leave the city Saturday, 18th of June, 
with Mrs. Garfield, for Long Branch. He therefore determined to meet 
him at the depot. He left his boarding-place about five o'clock Satur- 
day morning, June 18, and went down to the river at the foot o± 



trorjaiTLL kapjiates the cubie. 701 

SeX&fitc^entli Btreet, imd "fired five sliots to practice his aim Timl be cer- 
itain liis pistol was in good order. He then \vei*.t to the de^xit m\4 was 
Sn the ladies' waiting-rocmi of the depot with hi.s pistol ready when the 
Pre.*identi;il party entered. He saw ]Mrs> Garfiekl, who looke^l so w<?ak 
5vnd frail he had not the heart to shoot the Presideist in her pre,se?ice., 
«nd as he knew he would have another opportunity he Jeft the depot. 
He had previously engaged a carri^e to take him to tiie jail. Wedneg<lay 
<eveni«g, the President and lu-s son» and, I think, United States Mar.<hal 
Henry, went out for a ride. The assassin tools, his pistol and ibllowed 
them, and watched Uieni for some time ia ho[>es the carriage would stop, 
l)ut no opportuEity was given. Friday eveniiig, July 1, he was sitting 
"on a seat in the park op|X)site tlie White House, when he saw the Presi* 
•dent come out alone. He followed hini down tlie avenue to Fifteenth 
Street, and then kept o« the opposite side of th<e street up Fifteenth until 
the President entered the residence of Secretary Blaine. He waited at 
the corner of Mr. INIorton's lat'C; residence, -corner of Fifteenth and H 
Streets, for som^e time, and tiien, as he was afraid he would attract atten* 
tion, he went into the alley in the rear of Morton's residence, examined 
liis pistol and waited.. The President and Secretary Blaine came out 
togethei-, and he followed them over to the gate of the White House, hut 
could get no opportunity to use his iveapon. On the morning of July 2, 
ke breakiasted at the Piggs House about 7 o'clock. He then walked up 
into the park acd sat there for an houn He then took a one-horse 
avenue -car and rode to Sixth Street, where he got out and went into the 
"depot and loitered around there, had liis shoes blacked, engag^ed a liack- 
ttian for two dollars to take him to the jail; Avent into the water closel 
and took his pistol out of his hip pocket and unwrapped the paper frona 
arouiii it, wni-cli he had put there for the purpose of preventing the per- 
spiration from his body dampening the powder, examined his pistol care- 
fully, tried the trigger and then returned and took a seat in the ladies' 
waiting-room, and as soon as the President entssred advanced behind him 
a!nd fired two shots. These facts, I think can be relied upon as accurate, 
and I give them to the public to contradict certain false rumors in con- 
nection with this most atrocious of atrocious crimes." 

This, then, is as nearly the true statement of the events antece- 
dent to the deed of July 2, as will ever be elicited. 

As the belief in the President's recovery became more general 
Guitcau -was in a measure thrust out of public interest. On the 



708 THE LIFE AND TEIAL OF GUITEAU. 

lOtii of July, District Attorney Corkhill sent the following letter 
to the Warden of the jail : 

"General J, S. Crocker, Warden U. S. Jail: 

''Dear Sir: — The grand jury having adjourned until the 12th of Sep 
teniher, and it being impossible to determine the final results of the 
attack by Charles Guiteau, the assassin of the President, it will be neces- 
sary to retain him in custody for future action by the authorities. 

I desire you to place him on one side of tlie jail where there are no 
other prisoners, and where the means of escape are impossible; that you 
will allow him to see no other person whatever, and that he be not per- 
mitted to hold conversation with any of the guards, and that lie be rigor- 
ously excluded from receiving or sending any communication except 
those delivered by me or received by my direction. 1 desire this direc- 
iion to be rigidly executed. George B. Cokkhill." 

These orders were for a time rigorously enforced. None of the 
guards were allowed to speak to Guiteau. The Warden and his 
deputy and the District Attorney and his assistants were the only 
persons who were permitted to exchange any words with the pris- 
oner. When it was deemed necessary for one of these officials to 
see Guiteau he w^as brought into the Wardeu^s office, locked inside 
with the officer and a guard stationed at the door. This course of 
proceeding was unwarranted by law, and the District Attorney was 
by and by obliged to abate a measure of the harshness exhibited 
in his orders to the jailer. For a while, how^ever, Guiteau was 
immured in solitary confinement Avith nothing but the alternation 
of day and night to keep him company. 

Guiteau had once been for a short time a denizen of Boston. It 
was at the epoch when he regarded himself as a great moral re- 
former. While there he published a pamphlet entitled " Truth/' 
a kind of rhapsodical commentary on the Bible. The author laid 
great stress npon this production, evidently regarding it asthcprin- 
cipia of a new philosophy Avhich was to regenerate the world. 
During the latter part of July and the early part of August he 
spent his time in jail in writing a new preface for "Truth/' and 
giving some finishing strokes to his immortal effiision. While at 
this work he showed little disposition to talk. He was at times 



CHARACTER OF A JAIL-BIRD. 700 

somewhat morose but did not exhibit any marked signs of despond- 
ency. He read his Bible daily, and when the Warden of the jail 
asked him if he found any thing new in that book, he replied: " I 
find many things that 1 like to read." One thing noticeable about 
his conduct was that from the time of his arrest throughout the 
period of his imprisonment and the long trial that ensued he was 
never heard to utter a profane word. In his conversation and de- 
meanor there was something of refinement though his language and 
manners had at times strange symptoms of aflPcctation and staginess. 
A report from the jail of August 9th is interesting in its details 
respecting the daily life of the prisoner. The report says : 

"Guiteau is a very tractable prisoner. The rei)resentations frequently 
made that he is restless and querulous, are not founded on fact. His 
diet has been the subject of considerable newspaper comment. When 
he was first taken to jail he suflTered a little with a derangement of the 
bowels, and at the sugaestion of the jail physician, Dr. Young, he was 
given tea instead of coffee. Coffee sweetened with molasses is served to 
prisoners as a rule, molasses being administered as a laxative, as the 
prisoners get little exercise. In Guiteau's case coffee was omitted fiom 
the bill of fare for a while, but now he fVequendy asks for coffee and 
gets it. He evinces considerable interest in his diet, but not more so 
than is customary with the prisoners, and he does not complain. Wheat 
bread is served to the prisoners for breakfast, and corn bread for dinner. 
When corn bread does not agree with a prisoner he is given wheat bread 
altogether. For the same reason that tea Avas served instead of cofJee, 
Guiteau was to be put on the 'white bread' list. He seems to relish 
milk, and often asks for it. He takes a special gastronomic delight in 
meat. Beef seems at present to be one of the main objects of his life. 
He shows little concern just now about any thing, except this meat. He 
has lost no flesh since his confinement, and if any thing, is in better 
condition than when he was taken to jail. He is now apparendy in ex- 
cellent health, eats heartily, and sleeps soundly." 

On the morning of the 17th of August an incident occurred 
which created a buzz of excitement. One of the guards, named 
McGill, went into the cell Avhere Guiteau was confined, at an early 
hour in the morning, and finding the prisoner sitting on the edge 



710 THE LIFE AXD TRIAL OF GUITEAF, 

(jf the bed, imagiued that he was about doing some desperate deed 
or at least was contriving some mischief. The guard asked, 
"What are you doing?" " Nothing," said Guitcau. "What have 
you got there?" said the guard. "Nothing, nothing," replied 
Guiteau, They were both scared and pitching at each other, en- 
gaged in a sort of reciprocal assault and battery. The veracious 
reporter was instantly on the ground and sent the affair to the four 
corners of nature as "A desperate attempt of the assassin to kill 
his guard with a knife which had been smuggled into the prison.'' 
Mr. McGill Avas a lion during a whole forenoon. 

On the 15th of August, when the news went abroad of the 
President's alarming symptoms and the country was again obliged 
to face the impending death of its chief magistrate, popular fnry 
broke forth anew again.'rt the unrepentant miscreant who had 
caused the great sorrow. There were thousands of people wha 
would have joined a mob to hang him without the form of con- 
demnation. To the infinite credit of the Government, however, 
in the midst of all this passion, while hundreds of unprincipled 
newspapers were openly throwing out hints of encouragement to 
the spirit of thuggery, every precaution was taken to protect 
Guiteau from violence. One of the most manly utterances of the 
times was that of General R. B. Ayres, military commandant of the 
District. When it was made known that one thousand armed 
men — trained soldiers — were stationed near the jail to defend it at 
all hazards, a newspaper Bohemian called on the commandant 
and said: 

" General, it is said this action on the part of the Government 
will be made only in semblance of giving protection to the assassin, 
and that you Avill soon give way and allow the people to take their 
m^n, and that if you are compelled to fire, it will be with blank 
cartridges." 

" Those who have such ideas," said General Ayres, " will be sadly 
mistaken, and while I should deeply regret the death of a single 
man in such a cause, yet my orders are imperative,* and as I am 

*The orders in question were issued by a gentleman named William Tecumseh 
Siierman. 



MASON MISSES HIS MAX. 711 

a soldier, they Avill be obeyed. Guiteau i> a prisoner of the United 
States Goverumcnt. He is confined Avithiii a United States jail. 
The Constitution and laws guarantee him a fair trial. This is the 
Capital of the Nation, the head center of law and order. The 
Government has determined that no mob law shall reign here, and 
I have been directed to protect the prisoner and United States 
property, and you may rest a^^sured that it ^vill be done. My force 
is ample and in condition to meet the largest mob that could be 
found. I sincerely trust no such demonstration will be made by 
the people, because, if they attempt to carry out their purpose, 
innocent lives may be lost.'' 

There is no apparition in heaven or earth that a mob so fears 
as an honest soldier. A row of brass buttons can chase a thou- 
sand. 

During the last week of August and the first week of September 
the monotony of Guitcau's prison life was rarely broken. A isit- 
ors, the counsel for the prisoner excepted, were not allowed in the 
jail, and all communication with the outside was intercepted. It 
Mas given out that Guiteau's theory of a defense for his crime 
would be that the deed was done without malice, while his coun- 
sel preferred the plea of insanity. For this reason it was said in 
the newspaper reports of the day that the District Attorney and 
other officers of the law were staying out of sight of Guiteau lest 
they might see something indicative of insanity. The following 
ludicrous — and perhaps true — telegram was given out to the 
papers on the 8th of September : 

"The District Attorney and his assistants have seen hitherto ro mani- 
festations of insanity in Guiteau's conduct. Theij do 7wt intend to f<:e any. 
Therefore they will let him severely alone." 

Three davs after the publication of this remarkable imTlioJ of 
getting at the truth, an incident occurred which came near " remov- 
ing" Guiteau in the same manner which he had employed in the 
case of the President. One of the prison guards, Sergeant ]\Iason, 
of Batterv B, Second Artillery, wlien releasing the guard on duty 



712 THE LIFE AND TEIAL OF GUITEAU. 

at the jail, shot at Guiteau through the window of his cell, and 
came near killing him. The ball crashed through the window, 
grazed his head, and was imbedded in the cell wall beyond. Ma- 
son was promptly arrested, taken to the Arsenal, incarcerated, and 
held for trial. For this attempted murder Mason, who was evi- 
dently a disordered being, became the hero of the day.* 

On the 12th of September, Guiteau was the recipient of two 
effusions, quite unlike in rhythm and sentiment. It appeared that 
the writers held different views of the character and mission of 
the person addressed, and that, although there was little want of 
spirit in either poem, the authors belonged to opposite schools of 
literature and politics. All things considered, the first production 
was more pretentious, but the second had more pith. The former 
was the work of a Philadelphia bard of communistic proclivities, 
and was addressed — 

"2b Hon. Charles Guiteau: 

"Brave, noble man, of heroic birth, 

That risks life, liberty, and worldly pleasure, 
And returns the hireling's scorn with mirth, 
To their snarls retort without measure. 

"Well bearest thou Booth's immortal mantle, 
"With courage unsurpassed and hand of steel, 
To remove the foul ulcer that does rankle, 

The hearts of true men that would liberty feel. 

"May the courage of Booth and the coolness of Payne 
Bear thee safely through the fire of wrath, 
That thou may view thy life not periled in vain, 
But like a Phoenix arise above the bloody bath. 

"And Stalwart shall be thy praise. 

When tlie funeral bell announces the note, 
A true man as President thou hast raised, 
Upon whom all freemen shall ever dote. 

" Stalwart." 



"And at the time of writing these pages he has never been brought to trial, nor 
is it likelv that he ever will be. 



AN ENERGETIC BAED. 713 

The other poet was from Cincinnati, and had evidently niodeled 
his style after that of Skelton. The Ohio rhapsodist said: 

" Charles Guilcau (DevU) : 

"Charles Guiteau, 
What a nice show 
You would make 
If we shouM take 
A thirty-inch gun 
And have some fun 
By putting you down, 
Heel and crown, 
And then appall 
Some old stone wall 
By letting you slide 
Against its side; 
A greasy spot, 
We all doubt not. 
Would be the end 
Of hell's best friend. 
Sooner or later 
You '11 find a crater 
Burning round you. 
Confound you !" 

Thursday, the 8th of September, was Guiteau's birthday. The 
assassin observed the occasion as best he could. He had now been 
in close confinement for sixty-eight days, and it was supposed that 
he had lost his reckoning, as prisoners generally do after a few 
weeks of seclusion. Not so, however, Guiteau. Much curiosity 
was manifested about the jail as to how he had kept the calendar. 
The warden went to his cell and said: 

" Well, Mr. Guiteau, can you tell me how it is you can fix the 
date of your birthday, having been so long confined?" 

"That's easy enough. I will show you," answered Guiteau; 
and drawing a short piece of candle from under the mattress of 
his bed he held it up, and said : " Just count the days on that." 

General Crocker looked at the piece of candle and saw upon it 
a number of nicks, and, counting them, saw that they were marked 
up to date, and that Guiteau had by no means lost his reckoning. 



714 THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

Ho brought out the piece of caudle and exhibited it to the reporter, 
and afterward returned it to Guiteau, who stuck it under his bed 
again in a manner as though he supposed that some one would 
carry it off. 

In the latter part of August, when the surgeons attending the 
President were busy informing the public of their patient's " con- 
valescence," Guiteau managed to learn the condition of affairs, and 
made application for bail. This, however, was refused, and his 
imprisonment continued as before until the final eclipse at El- 
beron. 

After Mason's attempt to shoot the prisoner it was deemed pru- 
dent to remove the latter to another cell where the experiment 
could not be repeated. He was accordingly taken, on the 12th 
day of September, to a place of special security in the north wing 
of the jail. The room was surrounded without with a brick wall 
all around to the height of seven feet, so that no shot could be 
fired into it from the halls. Light and air were admitted through 
a '' diminished " window into the apartment, Avhich was in other 
respects a dungeon. 

So the President died. There were not wanting in ^Vashington 
abundant elements to raise a tumult and destroy Guiteau, but the 
authorities stood their ground, and the canaille slunk off to its 
kennel. It only remained for the forms of law, those ancient 
English processes by which crime is adjudged and punished, to 
take hold of the miserable wretch who had destroyed the peace 
of the Nation and dispose of him according to that inexorable 
justice w'hich holds the civilized world in equipoise. The author- 
ities at once began consultation as to the proper methods of pro- 
cedure. At the threshold they were met with a serious technical 
embarrassment. It was the question of jurisdiction. Should the 
cause be tried in the District of Columbia or in New Jersey? The 
President had been shot down in the depot at Washington. He 
had lingered ; had been taken to Long Branch, New Jersey, and 
there had died from the effects of the wound. Where should the 
crime be tried? The precedents, both English and American, 
seemed to preclude the jurisdiction of the court of the District 



QUESTION OF JURISDICTION. 715 

beyond a trial for assault and battery with intent to kill. It was 
clearly indicated that the President's case was simply that of a 
person who had received a mortal wound in the District of Co- 
lumbia, from the effects of which his death had taken place else- 
where, and under these circumstances the courts of the District 
would not have jurisdiction of the offense as a homicide, but would 
be confined to a consideration of the assault merely. 

As a further exposition of the case it may be said that, at com- 
mon law, murder, together with other offenses, must be inquired 
into in the county wherein it is committed. 

It was not likely, however, that teehical difficulties, such as a 
disputed jurisdiction. Mould or could seriously impede the admin- 
istration of justice in a case like Guitcau's. There are times when 
precedents do not go for much. In the present instance it was 
not conceivable that the culprit should slip through the meshes of 
the law. Besides, there were two considerations tending strongly 
to determine the trial of the assassin in the District rather than 
in New Jersey. These were, first, the fact that no appeal can be 
taken from a decision rendered in the criminal courts of the Dis- 
trict of Columbia; and, second, the fact that a disputed jurisdic- 
tion between one county and another, or between one titate. and 
another, is quite a different matter from that of a disputed ju- 
risdiction between the District and a State. That is to say, there 
is a sense in Avhich the courts of the District are courts of the 
Nation. This crime of Guiteau, so far as the initial violence was 
concerned, was committed under the jurisdiction of these courts 
of the Nation ; and the crime was completed, by the death of the 
President, in the State of New Jersey — a part of the Nation. That 
the jurisdiction of the courts of the District could reach after and 
trammel up a crime completed outside of the District, but begun 
therein, was no greater stretch of construction than might reason- 
ably be expected in a case of such aggravated celebrity. 

It may have been considerations such as these, or perhaps others 
of less importance and validity, that led the oracular Col. Cork- 
hill to give out, on the day after the President's death, the follow- 
ing utterances, general and special, on the law of the homicide ^ 



716 THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

"Guiteau ^vill not go to New Jersey, either to the coroner's inquest or 
fur trial. There is no necessity in either case. His presence is not at all 
necessary before the coroner and his jury, nor is it neceesary for New 
Jersey to assume jurisdiction over his case because of defective juri.<diction 
in the District. The jurisdiction of our courts over him is coni])lete. 
There is absolutely nothing in these absurd squabbles which have been 
raised about the status of Guiteau should the President die at Long 
Branch. The law is definite and ample; it covers the whole case. 
Guiteau will be indicted, tried, convicted of homicide, a:.d executed in 
Washington. The only thing that could prevent his indictment and con- 
viction would be lack of evidence, amounting to a fatal flaw. In our 
case this is not within the possibilities." 

As an instance of how it is possible for an attorney who does not 
precisely know his own whereabouts to take both sides of the 
same question at the same time, without any feeling of embarrass- 
ment, it may be stated that on the very same day on which the 
above opinion was given out, the Associated Press dispatches, 
from Washington, contained the following striking paragraph : 

"It is the opinion of the District Attorney and his assistants that, 
under the laws of the District, Guiteau can not be tried for murder here. 
But, that the greatest punishment that can be given him is such punish- 
ment as is incidental to a simple case of assault and battery. In case 
such a conclusion shall be definitely arrived at, it may become a puzzling 
question as to how the state of New Jersey can obtain jurisdiction over 
the person of the assassin. In the opinion of some lawyers, he can only 
be brought within the jurisdiction of the laws of that state by means of 
the Extradition Laws, as they simply refer to fugitives from justice. Un- 
less some legal technicality can construe Guiteau to come under that 
category, it is a difficult matter to see in what manner New Jersey can 
obtain jurisdiction." 

In point of fact, " the District Attorney and his assistants " 
were befogged. 

Immediately after the funeral of President Garfield the initial 
steps were taken to bring on the trial of his destroyer. The first 
thing was, of course, to procure a proper indictment by the grand 
jury of the District. To this end, on the 28th of September, sub- 



LEGAL PEELIMJNAPJES, 717 

poenas were issued to the the following persons to apprar and tes- 
tify in the case of the United States versus Charles J. Guitcau, for 
the murder of James A. Garfield, namely : 

Edward A. Bailey, stenographer, who had a large mass of notes 
of conversations with Guiteau while in jail, giving his history from 
early boyhood, reasons for committing the act, etc.; George W. 
Adams, President of the Evening Star Publishing Company, who 
was in the depot en route to Cape May when tlie shooting oc- 
curred; George W. McElfresh, detective; Dr. D. W. Bliss and 
Dr. D. S. Lamb, who were present at the autopsy ; Jacob P. Smith, 
special officer at the Baltimore and Potomac Depot, who witnessed 
the shooting and assisted in the arrest of Guiteau ; Sarah E. D. 
White, in charge of the ladies' waiting-room at the depot, who 
witnessed the shooting, and helped to raise the President; Rob- 
ert' A. Park, ticket seller, who jumped through the window of his 
office and assisted in raising the President; Policeman Patrick 
Kearney, who spoke to the President just before the shooting, 
telling him he had ten minutes to M-ait for the train, a-xl who 
also assisted in Guiteau's arrest. In addition to the regular sub- 
poenas the District Attorney also asked Senor Don Simon Co- 
macho, Charge d' Affaires from Venezuela, who^ was in tlic depot 
and witnessed the shooting, to testify. All the above named wit- 
nesses were directed to be in attendance at the reassembling of the 
grand jury at the criminal court room on Monday, October 3d, 
when a presentment of the case would be made. 

Meanwhile, in the imagination of Guiteau, he had become his 
own counsel and was engaged in his own defense. His theory of 
the crime was from the first, and ever continued to be, that the 
President's " removal " was a political necessity, and that he had 
been inspired to remove him. The Deity had ordered him by a 
" pressure " brought to bear on his mental faculties about the 
Gth of Juno, and which continued to weigh upon him constantly, 
to "' remove" President Garfield out of the way in order to prevent 
the disruption of the Republican party and consequent civil w^ar ! 
The court, however, more wise than the prisoner's folly, deemed 
it just to appoint competent counsel in order to secure beyond all 



718 THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

cavil not only the form, but the substance of a fair and impartial 
trial. To this end, Mr. George M. Scoville, of Chicago, a brother- 
in-law of the prisoner, was named as counsel for the defendant. 
Mr. Scovilic repaired at once to Washington and began the labo- 
rious and thankless work of preparing a defense for the crime of 
his kinsman. 

At the first, Mr. Scoville tried to find associate counsel to aid 
him in the case. This was a difficult task. None coveted the 
undertaking. The distinguished Emory A. Storrs, of Chicago, was 
solicited, but declined because of previous engagements. For sim- 
milar reasons the services of General Benjamin F. Butler could not 
not be procured; and so, for the time, Mr. Scoville undertook the 
defense alone. He adopted the plea of insanity. 

The investigation before the grand jury continued until the 8th 
of October, when an indictment for murder in the first degree was 
found. The instrument was framed vith great care, and contained 
eleven counts, the first of which is as foLows : 

"First Count— The grand jurors of the United States of America, in arid for the 
county of Washington and District of Columbia, upon their oath, present that 
Charles J. Guiteau, late of the county and District aforesaid, on the 2d day of July, 
in the year of our Lordpne thousand eight hundred and eighty-one, with force and 
arms, at and in the county and District aforesaid, in and upon the body of one 
James A. Garfield, in the peace of God, and of the United States of America, then 
and there being, feloniously, willfully, and of his malice aforethought, did make 
assault; and that said Charles J. Guiteau, a certain pistol of the value of five dol- 
lars, then and there charged with gunpowder and otie leaden bullet, which said 
pistol he, the said Charles J. Guiteau, in his right hand then and there had and 
held, then and there feloniously, willfully, and of his malice aforethought, did dis- 
charge and shoot ofT, to, against, and upon said James A. Garfield, and that said 
Charles J. (iuiteau, with leaden bullet aforesaid, out of the pistol aforesaid, then 
and there, by force of the gunpowder aforesaid, by said Charles J. Guiteau dis- 
charged and shot off as aforesaid, then and there feloniously, artfully, and of his 
malice aforethought, did strike, penetrate, and wound him, the said James A. Gar- 
field, in and upon the right side of the back of him, the said James A. Garfield, 
giving to him, said James A. Garfield, then and there, with the leaden bullet afore- 
said, so as aforesaid discharged and shot out of the pistol aforesaid, by said Charles 
J. Guiteau, in and upon the right side of the back of him, the said James A. Gar- ' 
field, one mortal wound of the depth of six inches, and of the breadth of one inch, 
which said mortal wound, he, the said James A. Garfield, from the said 2d day of 
July, in the year last aforesaid, until the 19th day of September, in the year of our 



THE INDICTMENT. 719 

Lord one thousand eight hundred and tighty-onc, at and in the county and District 
aforesaid, did languish and languishing did live, on which said 19th day of Sep- 
tember, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and eighty-one, at and 
in the county and District aforesaid, the said James A. Garfield of mortal wound 
aforesaid, dkd." * 

Each of the cloven counts of the indictment closed with the fol- 
lowing formal charge: 

"And so the grand jurors aforesaid, do say that the said Charles J. Guiteau, him, 
the said James A. Garfield, in the manner and by means aforesaid, feloniously, 
willfully, and of his malice aforethought did kill and murder, against the form of 
statute in such cases made and provided, and against the peace and Government of 
the United States of America." 

Such was the indictment which the accassin of the President 
had to face and to which he must plead. It was evident that on 
the prisoner's appearance in a public court for this purpose an 
unusual scene might be expected, and the day was accordingly 
awaited with much impatience by the immense army of sensation- 
mongers to whom such matters are a royal feast. There was an 
ciFort on the part of the District Attorney to kee]) the day of the 
prisoner's arraignment from the public, but the scent of the in- 
sinuating nostril was too keen to be deceived; and so on the 
morning of the 14th of October it was known that Guiteau was to 
be brought into court. The news spread everywhere, and a crowd 
gathered to witness the expected scene. 

The criminal court room for the District of Columbia, in which 
the trial of Guiteau was held, is an old and relatively insignificant 
building distant nearly three miles from the jail in which the pris- 
onei was confined. The room proper was not large or commodious 
and might well be defined as dingy. The presiding official was the 
Hon. Walter S. Cox, criminal judge for the District. The Prosecut- 
ing Attornpy -\as Colonel George B. Corkhill, already mentioned. 
He was assisted in the performance of his primary duties by Dep- 
uty Williams and Marshal Henry. The newspaper correspondents 

* This indictment and all others of the sort are well calculated to bring to mind 
Victor Hugo's famous dissertation on " Slang," as given in Chapter CCII. of Xt>: 
Miserabks, 



720 THE LIFE AND TEIAL OF GUITEAU. 

were all on hand, and for them a space was provided within the 
bar. Outside of that limit the crowd filled the seats — men who 
understood all about the law, and women who '"^ 

So on the morning of the 14th of October Guiteau was put into 
the prison van — a strong covered hack in which criminals were 
driven back and forth from the jail — and conveyed to the court. 
At 11 A. M., Colonel Corkhill came in and was seated. A few 
minutes later George M. Scoville, the prisoner's brother-in-law, 
entered and took his seat at the table set apart for the bar. There 
was a delay of a few minutes, during which everybody appeared 
to be waiting for something, when the same door again opened, 
and between Marshal C. E. Henry and Deputy Williams the mur- 
derer of the President entered the court-room. He dropped into 
a seat and the manacles were removed from his hands. 

Clerk Williams then ordered him to stand up, and the indict- 
ment was read to him. It was a long document, consuming about 
thirty-five minutes in the reading, and wearied the prisoner, clerk, 
and spectators. At its close, the usual question — 

"Are you guilty or not guilty?" — was asked him. 

He hesitated, and turned helplessly to his counsel. Then he 
said : " I am not guilty, but I have a statement to make." 

" That will come in after awhile," said Judge Cox, and the pris- 
oner dropped into a seat. Arguments for and against continuance 
were then made by Mr. Corkhill and Mr. Scoville, and Judge Cox 
set the trial for November 7, and took other matters under 
advisement. 

The marshal and his assistant then replaced the handcuffs on 
Guiteau, who manifested throughout the same listless indifference 
which he had shown when the indictment was read. He was 
hurried out of court by the same way he had been brought in, and 

■■■■During the progress of the Guiteau trial every effort -was made by many of 
the newspapers to scandalize Judge Cox's court. It was daily celebrated as a 
"theater," a ''circus," a "dive," etc., and the Judge himself was endlessly stigma- 
tized. As a matter of fact there never was any " circus " except that which was 
performed by the melange of barbarians outside of the railing, nor any "dive" 
except those in which the celebrities of the mob passed their evenings. 





GKUliiiE M. SCOVILLK. 



STATE OF MIND. 721 

was put into a hack in waiting and driven back to jail^ in the 
immediate custody of the marshal and his ar,sistants. 

As indicative of the state of Guiteau's mind at this epoch of hh 
incarceration, the following letter, to Mr. Scoville, written two 
(lays before the arraignment, may be cited: 
''Mr. Scoville: 

"I liad a high fever hist night, the worst I have had since I was sick 
ill July. I told Colonel Corkhill's assistant that I should not be able to 
go into court this Aveek anyway. Did you see the President ? If not, see 
him at once, and get what time we want. He is bound to help me, an(\ 
he will help me if you stick to hira. Talk to him just as I would. 
Thirty days to plead and my book are the objects to be pressed now. Ask 
Mr. Merrick if we can not compel Bailey to loan me his note-book. If 
not, give me a man and I will go at it again. I think I can redictate it 
in two days. We ought to get possession of Bailey's book in some way. 
Do not waste any effort on trying to prove my actual insanity. It would 
disgust the court and jury. Legal insanity is all I claim, and that is just 
as real as actual. I want to see the leading Stalwarts I met in New York 
last fall, in my defense. This and my own testimony is about all the de- 
fense I have, as the law is with us — the law of insanity and the law of 
jurisdiction. See me as soon as you can. I want to get my book out at 
once, some way. C. G. 

"October 12." 

This was accompanied, on the same day, by " a warning to the 
public," as follows : 
' ' To the p^iblic : 

"I wish to warn all persons to attempt no violence on me, as they will 
probably be shot dead if they do, by the officials having me in custody. 
The United States Government is bound to protect me and give me a fair 
trial, and the honor of the American people is at stake for my personal 
protection. I understand this bitterness is kept alive by certain friends 
of the late President, who expected office from him. They are mad about 
his removal, and it is irresponsible characters of this kind that are sending 
silly and impertinent letters anonymously to my attorney. These people 
I:ad better drop politics and go into other business. 

"With greatest respect, Charles GuiteAu. 

" United States JaU, October 12, 1881." 
46 



i'^'-L THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

Meanwhile, the ghost of jurisdiction again arose, but was soon 
(juieted by Mr. Scoville who gave notice of his intention not to 
controvert the jurisdiction of the courts of the District, but to re- 
strict himself to a plea of " Not guilty," and develop a defense on 
the line of insanity. The defendant's attorney then made strenu- 
ous efforts to obtain associate counsel and secure the attendance oi' 
witnesses from a distance. His success in this respect is described 
ir. a Press dispatch of October 10th — as follows : 

"Scoville, Guiteau's counsel, was much depi'essed by his visit to New 
York. He found no lawyer willing to undertake the defense without 
an exceptionally large retainer. Witnesses to character refused to go to 
Washington to testify, although many admitted they would have to say, 
on oath, they believed the assassin insane years ago. He now relies 
upon witnesses procured here. He says officers ot the Departments of 
State, War, and the Treasury, to whom Guiteau applied for office, will 
be obliged to testify that before the shooting they forbade Guiteau admit- 
tance because of the belief that he was a "crank." 

The indictment having been properly found, the preliminaries 
attended to, the arraignment duly made, the question of jurisdic- 
tion settled, and the day for the trial set, there was a lull. Mean- 
while, on the 6th of October the conntry had had a sensation 
occasioned by the publication of Guiteau's autobiography. It will 
be remembered that in a series of interviews with Colonel Corkhill, 
the prisoner had given a voluble account of himself from his 
childhood down to the date of the assassination, including therein 
without reserve a full recital of his motives plans and purposes in 
the commission of the crime. Colonel Corkhill AA'as accompanied 
on these visits to Guiteau's cell by one Bailey, a stenographer by 
whom the story of the prisoner's life was taken down verbatim. 
So far as Guiteau was concerned, his purpose in this business was 
to jircpare in this manner an autobiography from the sale of which 
he expected to realize a large sum to defray the expense of his 
forthcoming trial. So far as Colonel Corkhill was concerned his 
object was to secure from the assassin's own lips the full particu- 
lars of the crime which he had committed. So far as Mr. Bailey 
was concerned his object seems to have been to realize as large a 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 723 

per cent, as possible on the capital invested. Guiteau tried in vain 
to secure control of the stenographer's notes for the purpose of 
issuing his book. Bailey, however, found a better market in the 
New York Herald, to which newspaper he sold the Guiteau note- 
book for a round sum. So, in the Herald of the 6th of October, 
the story of the assassin's life, as told by himself, appeared. 
The first half of the narrative, covering the account of his early 
career up to the time when he appeared as an office-seeker in 
Washington, may be omitted as not strictly relevant to this History 
of the Trial; but the latter part including his own account of the 
conception, development, and commission of the crime against the 
President's life will never cease to be of interest so long as the 
fascination of evil deeds remains to lure the imagination of man- 
kind. The leading features of that story are as follows : 

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF GUITEAU. 

SEEKING OFFICE. 

"After the deadlock broke I saw Mr. Blaine at the State Department one day, 
and he said that he did not think that the President would remove Mr. Walker, 
This was the first intimation from either the President or Mr. Blaine that they did 
not intend to give me the Paris consulship. I was surprised, and I said to Mr. 
Blaine : ' I am going to see the President and try and induce him to remove Mr. 
"Walker and give me the Paris consulship.' ' Well, if you can, do so,' said Mr. 
Blaine. This is the last conversation I have had with him, I have not spoken to 
him on any subject since. A few days after I saw Mr. Blaine I called at the White 
House to get the President's final answer in reference to my getting the Paris con^ 
sulship. I sent in my card, and the door-keeper came back in a moment and said; 
'Mr. Guiteau, the President says it will be impossible for him to see you to-day.' 
I therefore sent him a little note and told him about the Paris consulship. I never 
had a personal interview with the President on the subject of the Paris consulship 
except once, and that was when I handed him my speech and told him that I 
would like the Paris consulship, which was about the 7th or 8th of March. He 
was inaugurated on Friday and it was about the middle of the following week 
after his inauguration. 

CONCEPTION OP THE A.SSASSINATION. 

"I conceived the idea of removing the President," Guiteau declares, "pending 
the answer, and as far as the Paris consulship had any influence on my mind at 
all it would have deterred me from the act, because I expected, as a matter of fact, 
that I would get the Paris consulship. After I conceived the idea of removing the 



724 THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

President I did not go near Mr. Blaine or near the President to press my applica- 
tion. About two or three weeks intervened from the time that I called at the 
President's when the door-keeper said, ' Mr. Guiteau, the President says it will be 
impossible for him to see you to-day,' to the time that I conceived the idea of re- 
moving him, during which time I was waiting patiently for my answer, which, as 
as a matter of fact, I have never yet received. I had been pressing the President 
and Mr. Blaine for an answer, and I thought that it would be better for me to keep 
away from them. My conception of the idea of removing the President was this : 
Mr. Conkling resigned on Monday, May 16, 188L On the following Wednesday I 
was in bed. I think I retired about 8 o'clock. I felt depressed and ^jerplexed on 
account of the political situation, and I retired much earlier than usual. I felt 
wearied in mind and body, and I was in my bed about 9 o'clock and I was thinking 
over the political situation, and the idea flashed through my brain that if the Presi- 
dent was out of the way every thing would go better. At first this was a mere im- 
pression. It startled me, but the next morning it came to me with renewed force, 
and I began to read the papers with my eye on the possibility that the President 
would have to go, and the more I read, the more I saw the complication of public 
aflfairs, the more was I impressed with the necessity of removing him. This thing 
continued for abotit two weeks. I kept reading the papers and kept being im- 
pressed, and the idea kept bearing down upon me that the only way to unite the 
two factions of the Eepublican party and save the Republic from going into the 
hands of the rebels and Democrats was to quietly remove the President. 

PREPAKING FOR THE CRIME. 

" Two weeks after I conceived the idea my mind was thoroughly settled on the 
intention to remove the President. I then prepared myself. I sent to Boston for a 
copy of my book, 'The Truth,' and I spent a week in preparing that. I cut out a 
paragraph, and a line, and a word here and there, and added one or two new chap- 
ters, put some new ideas in it and I greatly improved it. I knew that it would 
probably have a large sale on account of the notoriety that the act of removing the 
President would give me, and I wished the book to go out to the public in pro[)er 
shape. That was one preparation for it. Another preparation was to think the 
matter all out in detail and to buy a revolver and to prepare myself for executing 
the idea. This required some two or three weeks, and I gave my entire time and 
mind in preparing myself to execute the conception of removing the President. I 
never mentioned the conception to a living soul. I did most of my thinking in the 
park and on the street, and I used to go to the Arlington and the Riggs House daily 
to read the pajjers. 

WATCHING AN OPPORTUNITY. 

"After I had made up my mind to remove him the idea when I should remove 
him pressed me, and I was somewhat confused on that. I knew that it would not 
do to go to the White House and attempt it, because there were too many of his 
employes about, and I looked around for several days to try and get a good chance 
at him; and oi^ Sunday (the Sunday before he went to Long Branch) I went to his 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 725 

church in the morning. I noticed the President sitting near an open window about 
three feet from the ground, and I thought to myself, 'That would be a good chance 
Jo get him.' I intended to shoot liim through the back of the head and let the 
ball pass through the ceiling, in order that no one else should be injured. And 
there could not possibly be a better place to remove a man than at his devotions_ 
I had my revolver in my possession when I first went to the church, having pur- 
chased it about ten days before the President's going to Long Branch. This was 
the Sunday prior to his leaving for Long Branch on Saturday. During that whole 
week J read the papers carefully. I thought it all over in detail. T thought just 
what people would talk, and thought what a tremendous e.x;citement it would create, 
and I kept thinking about it all the week. I made up ni}' mind that the next Sun- 
day I would certainly shoot him if he was in church and I got a good chance at 
him. Thursday of the same week I noticed in the pajier that he was going to Long 
Branch, and on the following Saturday he did go to the Branch for Mrs. Garfield's 
health. I went'to the depot all prepared to remove him. I had the revolver with 
me. I had all my papers nicely prepared. I spoke to a man about a carriage to 
take me, as I told him, over near the Congressional Cemetery. He said that he 
would take me over for two dollars, and seemed to be a very clever fellow and glad 
to get the job. I got to the depot about 9 o'clock and waited there until the Presi- 
dent's White House carriage drove up. About twcnly-five minutes after 9 the 
President and his carriage and servants and friends came up. He got out of his 
carriage. I stood in the ladies' room, abovit tlie middle of the room, watching him. 
Mrs. Garfield got out and they walked through the ladies' room, and the presence 
of Mrs. Garfield deterred me from firing on him. I was all ready; my mind was 
all made up; I had all my papers with me; I had all the arrangements made to 
shoot him and to jump into a carriage and drive over to the jail. Mrs. Garfield 
looked so thin, and she clung so tenderly to the President's arm, that I did not have 
the heart to fire on him. He passed right through the ladies' reception room, 
through the main entrance, and took the cars. 

AN ASSASSIN IN AMBCSH. 

" T noticed in the papers," Guitcau continues, " that he would be back the first 
of the week. I watched the papers very carefully to see when he would return, but 
he did not come back that week ; but he did come back on the following Monday. 
The following Monday was a terribly hot, sultry day. I remember I suffered 
greatly from the heat, but notwithstanding that I prepared myself again, and I Avent 
to the depot again on Monday with my revolver and my papei'^, but I did not feel 
like firing on him. I simply went to the depot. I sat in the ladies' waiting-room. 
I got there ten or fifteen minutes before the train time, and I waited and thought 
it all over, and made up my mind that I would not fire on him that day; I did not 
feel like it. The train came, and he came; and Mr. James, the Postmaster General, 
was there, and Mr. Hunt, the Secretary of the Navy, and their lady friends. The y 
all came through the ladies' room together, and the President's son and a thick-s( t 
gentleman that came from the White House to meet the President were there. 



7-2G THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

They went rifrht to the gate and got the President, and they all walked together t.» 
the President's carriage and they all got in and drove off. On Friday night, aft-^r 
J ^'ot my dinner at the Kiggs House, 1 went up to my room and I took out my 
revolver and put it in my hip pocket, and I had my papers with me, and 1 thought 
I possibly might get a chance at him Friday night. 1 went into Lafayette Square 
an.l sal there, opposite the White House. 

IN THE SHADOW OP DEATH. 

"I had not been there a minute before I saw the President walk out of the 
White House. ' Now,' I thought to myself, ' I have got a splendid chance at him ; 
he is all alone; there isn't any one around him.' He walked along the east side oi 
the s(iuare and down H Street. I followed him. He went to Mr. Blaine's house, 
on P'ifteenth Street. He walked along and when he got on the sidewalk opposite 
Mr. Blaine's house he looked up, as if he did not know the place exactly, and then 
he saw the correct number and walked in. I followed him along and I was about 
half way between H Street and Mr. Blaine's house, on the opposite side of the street, 
when he entered the house. I went into the alley in the rear of Mr. Morton's house 
and got ont my revolver and looked at it, and wiped it off and put it back into my 
pocket. I went over to the H Street stoop, at Wormley's, and I waited there half 
an hour, I should say, for the President to come out. He came out, and Mr. Blaine 
with him, and I waited at Wormley's until they passed by me on the opposite side- 
They walked down H Street, and on the east side of Lafayette Square, and through 
the gate nearest the Treasury Building, and into the White House. Mr. Blaine and 
the President seemed to be talking with the greatest earnestness. Mi*. Blaine was 
on the left side of the President as they walked along the street. Blaine's right arm 
was looped in tlie President's left arm, and they were engaged in the most earnest 
conversation; their heads were very close together. Blaine Avas striking the air 
every few moments, and the President was drinking it aH in; and occasionally the 
President would strike out his hand, thereby giving assent to what Mr. Blaine was 
saying. They seemed to be in a very hilarious state of mind and delightful fellowship 
and in perfect accord. This scene made a striking impression on me; it confirmed 
what I had read in the papers, and what I had felt for a long time — to wit: that 
the President was entirely under Mr. Blaine's influence, and that they were in per- 
fect accord. 

NEARIXO THE END. 

" Having heard on Friday from the papers, and also by my inquiries of the door- 
keeper at the White House Friday evening, that the President was going to Long 
Branch Saturday morning, I resolved to remove him at the depot. I took my Ijreak- 
fast at the Riggs House about 8 o'clock. I ate well, and felt well in body and 
mind. I went into Lafayette Square and sat there some little time after breakfast, 
waiting for 9 o'clock to come, and then I went to the depot, and I got there about 
ten minutes after 9. I rode there from the park in a ' bobtailed ' car. I left the 
car, walked up to a bootblack, got my boots blacked, and inquired for a man named 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY. fit 

John Taylor, whom, two weeks before, I had spoken to about taking me out towaivi 
the Congressional Cemetery. They told me that Taylor's carriage was not there; 
and there were three or four hackmen tliere who were very anxious to serve me-, 
and finally 1 noticed a colored man, and I said to him, 'What will j'ou take me 
out to the Congressional Cemetery for ?' He says, ' Well, I will take you out there 
for two dollars.' 'AH right,' said J; 'if 1 want to use you, I will let you know.' 
At that moment these other hackmen were pressing me to get my business, and I 
said to them: 'Keep quiet; you are too fast on this;' and I told this colored man 
privately that if I wanted his services I would let him know in a few minutes. I 
then went into the depot and took my private papers which I intended for the press 
(including a revised edition of my book, 'The Truth, a Companion to tiie Bible'), 
and stepped up to the news stand and asked the young man in charge if I could 
leave those papers with him a few moments, and he said 'Certainly;' and he took 
them and placed them up against the wall, on top of some other papers. This was 
about twenty minutes after 9, and I Avent into the ladies' waiting-room and I looked 
around, saw there was quite a good many people there, in the depot and carriages 
outside, but I did not see the President's carriage. I examined my revolver to see 
that it was all right, and took off the paper that I had wrapped around it to keep 
the moisture off. I waited five or six minutes longer, sat down on a seat in the ladies' 
room, and very soon the President drove up. He was in company witli a gentleman 
who, I understand, was Mr. Blaine; and I am satisfied that he was Mr. Blaine, al- 
though I did not recognize him. The President got out on the pavement side, and 
Mr. Blaine on the other side. They entered the ladies' room; I stood there watch- 
ing the President, and they passed by me. Before they reached the depot I Imd 
been promenading up and down the ladies' room, between the ticket-office dour and 
the news-stand door a space of some ten or twelve feet. I walked up and down 
there, I should say, two or three times, working myself up, as I knew the hour was 
at hand. The President and Mr. Blaine came into the ladies' room and walked 
right by me; they did not notice me, as there were quite a number of ladies and 
children in the room. 

HOW THE PRESIDENT FELL. ^ 

'' There was quite a large crowd of ticket purchasers at the gentlemen's ticket 
office in the adjoining room; the depot seemed to be quite full of people. There 
was quite a crowd and commotion around, and the President was in the act of pass- 
ing from the ladies' room to the main entrance through the door. I should say he 
was about four or five feet from the door nearest the ticket office, in the act of 
passing through the door to get through the depot to the cars. He was about 
three or four feet from the door. I stood five or six feet behind him, right in the 
middle of the room, and, as he was in the act of walking away from me, I pullc«l 
out the revolv.er and fired. He straightened up and threw his head l)ack, and 
seemed to be perfectly bewildered. He did not seem to know what struck him. I 
looked at him; he did not drop; I thereupon pulled again. He dropped his head, 
.«eemed to reel, and fell over. I do not know where the first shot hit; I aimed at 
the hollow of his back; I did not aim for any particular place, but I knew if I got 



728 TPIE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

those two bullets in liis back he would certainly go. I was in a diagonal direction 
from the President, to the north-west, and supposed both shots struck. 

THE ARKEST. 

"I was in the act of putting my revolver back into my pocket when the depot 
policeman seized mc and said, ' You shot the President of the United States.' He 
was terribly excited ; he hardly knew his head from his feet, and I said, ' Keep quiet, 
my friend; keep quiet, my friend. I want to go to jail.' A moment after, the po- 
liceman seized me by the left arm; clinched me with terrible force. Another gen- 
tleman — an older man, I should say, and less robust — seized me by the right arm. 
At this moment the ticket agent and a great crowd of people rushed around me, 
and the ticket agent said, 'That's him; that's him;' and he pushed out his arm to 
seize me around the neck, and I says, ' Keep quiet, my friends; I want to go to jail ; ' 
and the officers, one on each side of me, rushed me right off to the police head- 
quarters; and the officer who first seized me by the hand says, 'This man has just 
shot the President of the United States;' and he was terribly excited. And I said, 
' Keep quiet, my friend; keep quiet; I have got some papers which will explain the 
whole matter.' They let go of me, and they held my hands up— one policeman on one 
side, and one on the other — and they went through me, took away my revolver and 
what little change I had, my comb and my toothpick, all my papers. And I gave 
them my letter to the White House; told tljem that I wished they would send that 
letter to the White House at once; and the officer began to read my letter to the 
White House. And in this envelope containing my letter to the White House was 
my speech, ' Garfield against Hancock.' He glanced his eye over the letter, and I 
was telling him about sending it at once to the White House to explain the matter, 
and he said, 'We will put you into the White House!' So I said nothing after 
that. They took me around a little dai-k place and put me into a cell; they locked 
thp door and went ofT, and I did not see any one for ten minutes; and then one or 
two parties came and took a look at me — they were policemen and detectives — and 
said, ' I do n't know him. I do n't know that man. Never saw him before.' 



VISITS TO TIIE WHITE HOUSE. 

"During the lime that T was pressing my application for the Paris consulship I 
called at the White House several times. I handed my card to the door-keeper, and 
he would take it in to the President. The rcply came back on several occasions: 
'Mr. Guiteau, the President says that it will be impossible for him to see you to- 
day.' I understood by the President's statement that he could not see me to-day — 
and that was the statement that he sent me through his door-keeper several times — 
because he was trying gracefully to get rid of Walker, the present consul. In one 
of my notes to the President I asked him directly, 'Can I have the Paris consul- 
Ehip?' and the reply, as usual, came back, 'Mr. Guiteau, the President is very busy, 
and can not see you to-day.' 

" These interviews occurred several days apart — sometimes a week apart; they all 



THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 729 

occurred during the time that I was pressing my application for the Paris consul- 
ship. The case was pending at the time I shot the President, and, as I have before 
stated, I confidently expected a favorable answer Avhen they had got rid of Mr. 
Walker. I understood by the President's statement that he could not .see me; that 
he was trying in some way to get rid of Walker gracefully; and that, as a matter of 
fact, he intended that I should have it. My getting or not getting the Paris con- 
sulship had nothing whatever to do with my shooting the President; I shot him 
purely as a political necessity, under Divine pressure; and it was only by nerving 
nivself to the utmost that I shot him anyway. If he should recover, and I should 
meet him again, I would not shoot him. And now I leave the result with the Al- 
mighty. In case the President had said that I could not liave the Paris consul- 
ship, I intended to go to New York or Chicago and open a law office, and let poli- 
tics go. 

A LEGAL VIEW OF THE ASSASSINATION. 

" I shot the President without malice or murderous intent. I deny any legal lia- 
bility in this case. In order to constitute the crime of murder two elements must 
coexist. First, an actual homicide; second, malice — malice in law or malice in 
fact. The law presumes malice from the fact of the homicide; the degree of malice 
depends upon the condition of the man's mind at the time of the homicide. If two 
men quarrel, and one shoots the other in heat or passion, the law says that is man- 
slaughter. The remoteness of the shooting from the moment of its conception, fast- 
tens the degree of the malice. The further you go from the conception to the shoot- 
ing, the greater the malice, because the law says that in shooting a man a few hours 
or a few days after the conception, the mind has a chance to cool, and therefore the 
act is deliberate. Malice in fact depends upon tlie circumstances attending the 
homicide. Malice in law is liquidated in this case by the facts and circumstances, 
as set forth in these pages, attending the removal of the President. I had none but 
the best of feelings, personally, toward the President; I always thought of him and 
spoke of him as General Garfield. 

"I never had the slightest idea of removing Mr. Blaine or any member of the 
Administration. My only object was to remove Mr. Garfield in his oflicial capac- 
ity as President of the United States, to unite the Repulican party and save the 
Eepublic from going into the control of the rebels and Democrats. This was the 
sole idea that induced me to remove the President. I appreciate all the religion 
and sentiment and honor connected with tlie removal: no one can surpass me in 
this; but I put away all sentiment, and did my duty to God and to the American 
people." 

Such was the astounding story as tokl by the man himself. In 
the fourth chapter of his work he goes on to give his impression 
of public men v/hom he had casually met — all in the tone of an 
equal speaking of equals. He had carried about with him every- 
where his political speech entitled " Garfield against Hancock," 



730 THE LIFE AND TEIAL OF GUITEAU. 

and this sorry pamphlet he always used as a letter of introduc- 
tion. If a public man failed to recognize him, out came the 
speech. He tells how he was snubbed by Mr. Conkling, whom 
he styles " My Lord Roscoe," and who nearly always seemed to 
him to be on his " high horse." Mr. Jewell was always affable, 
and appeared to like him. Mr. Blaine he met two or three times 
at the State Department. He describes one interview in the first 
week of March : " I gave Mr. Blaine my speech headed ' Garfield 
against Hancock,' and he immediately recognized me and bright- 
ened up, and was very clever to me. I met him in the elevator 
one day about that time — probably about a week later — and he 
was very cordial, and said he remembered me, and seemed to be 
very glad to see me. My standing with Mr. Blaine ran along in 
this free and familiar way until he told me one day that he did 
not think the President would remove Mr. Walker. Since that I 
have not seen him." Mr. Conkling he saw one day at the Capitol. 
The ex-Senator was in conversation with a gentleman. " I sat 
within a few feet of him," says Guiteau, " on the sofa. I eyed 
him, and he eyed me, and when he got through with his friend 
I stepped up and said '■ Good-morning, Senator,' and he said 
' Good-morning.' I said, ' I hope to get an appointment, Sen- 
ator, and I hope you will remember me;' and he simply said 
' Perfectly,' and I bowed, and he bowed, and we parted." 

Finally, in bringing his autobiography to an end, the miserable 
wretch says : 

"And now I speak of two matters strictly personal. First — I am looking for a 
wife, and see no objection to mentioning it here. I want an elegant Christian lady 
of wealth, under thirty, belonging to a first-class family. Any such lady can ad- 
dress me in the utmost confidence. My mother died when I was only seven, and I 
have always felt it a great privation to have no mother. If my mother had lived I 
never should have got into the Oneida Community, and my life, no doubt, would 
have been happier every way. Nearly three years after I left the Community I was 
unfortunately married. At last I made up my mind that I would sever the bonds, 
and I was divorced in 1874. I am fond of female society, and I judge the ladies are 
of me, and I should be delight-ed to find my mate." 

The second subject in which he desires to take the j)ublic into 
his confidence refers to the Presidency. 



"HIS OWN COUNSEL." 731 

" For twenty years," he writes, " I have had an idea that I should be President. 
I had the idea when I lived in the Oneida Community, and it has nevtr Itft me. 
When I left Boston for New York, in June, ISSO, I remember distinctly I felt that 
X was on my way to the White House. I had this feeling all through the canvass 
last fall in New York, although I mentioned it to only two persons. My idea is 
that I shall be nominated and elected as Lincoln and Garfield were — that is, by 
the act of God. If I were President, I should seek to give the Nation a tlrst-class 
administration in every respect. I want nothing sectional or crooked around me. 
My object would be to unify the entire American people, and make them happy, 
prosperous, and God-fearing." 

Perhaps this audacious production will forever remain an enigma. 
Was it the product of insanity or merely of subtle craft and crimi- 
nal bravado? 

On the 17tli of October, Mr. Scoville, counsel for the prisoner, 
made application to Judge Cox for an allowance sufficient to bring 
witnesses to Washington whose evidence would otherwise have to 
be taken by deposition. To this appeal/which was in like man- 
ner presented by Colonel Corkhill for the prosecution, the judge 
replied that it was clearly in the discretion of the court to allow 
expenses for a reasonable number of witnesses, such allowance to 
be paid in the same manner as Government witnesses, and stated 
he would decide in chambers as to the number of witnesses to be 
allowed. Upon the question of assignment of counsel to assist 
defense, the judgfe stated he would defer the matter for further 
consideration. 

A leading feature of Guiteau's programme, as it related to the 
approaching trial, was to be his own counsel. He was anxious 
from the beginning to undertake his own defense. From first to 
last he never abated his pretensions in this partictular. His ve- 
hement declaration was that he would trust no man in America 
to conduct his defense except himself. This disposition on the 
part of the prisoner was aggravated by the fact that the line of 
defense adopted by Mr. Scoville, namely, insanity, was repudiated 
by Guiteau himself, who strenuously insisted that the true plea in 
his own behalf was inspiration. The Deity had inspired him to 
remove the President, and he had obeyed the call without the 
slightest malice towards his victim. The counsel for the defendant 



732 THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

were greatly embarrassed by the persistent and officious obtrusion 
of the prisoner's theory into their plans for establishing his in- 
sanity. 

JVfr. Scoville was greatly beset with other difficulties in prepar- 
ing for the trial- After the most strenuous eiforts he was unable 
'o procure the assistance of any lawyer of national reputation to 
assist him in the conduct of the defense. As a last resort the court 
appointed Mr. Leigh Robinson, of Washington, as associate coun- 
sel with Scoville. As the day set for the trial drew near, the lat- 
ter found himself* unprepared, and asked for an extension of time. 
This appeal was strongly opposed by Colonel Corkhill, but the 
judge decided to grant a brief extension; so that the proceedings 
which were to liave been begun on the 7th of November were 
postponed until the 14th. The judge, in granting this favor to 
the defense, said: 

*' If tills were an ordinary case of voluntary arrangement ol' counsel to 
enter into the case, I should say the case should not be subordinated to 
other engagements, but It Is a consideration not to be disregarded that the 
order of the court has taken counsel from the performance of other engage- 
ments. The {>etition is therefore granted." 

In the interim between the 1st and the 14th of November the 
preparation for the prosecution and the defense was completed. The 
counsel for the former was strengthened by the appointment of 
Judge J. K, Porter, a distinguished criminal lawyer of New York, 
and Mr. Walter W. Davidge, of the District, to assist the prose- 
cuting attorney. Colonel Corkhill. The battle line was that of 
the mental condition of the prisoner on the 2d of July. This 
would, of course, involve questions of opinion as well as questions 
of fact, and a great number of " experts " were accordingly sum- 
moned to testify as to the prisoner's mental state. 

All preliminaries ended, the case of the United States versus 
Charles J. Guiteau was, on the morning of the 14th of November, 
promptly called in the criminal court of the District. Judge Wal- 
ter S. Cox presided. Colonel Corkhill, Judge Porter, and Mr. 
Davidge appeared for the prosecution, and Mr. Scoville and Leigh 



GETTING A JURY. 733 

Robinson, Esq., for the defense. The crier opened the court, and 
the District Attorney announced that the United States was ready 
to proceed with the trial. Then, to the astonishment of all pres- 
ent, Mr. Eobinson, who had been appointed to assist in the de- 
fense, arose and asked for a continuance of the cause. Mr. Scoville 
was astounded at this, and the prisoner himself was greatly excited. 
It immediately came out that Robinson had not consulted Scoville 
regarding his purpose to ask for a continuance, and, as a matter 
of policy, that plan of proceeding was disapproved by Scoville and 
vociferously denounced by Guiteau. The latter became wild with 
excitement, sprang up many times from his seat, declared that he 
was conducting his own cause, and that Robinson should retire. 
After much wrangling and great excitement. Judge Cox decided 
that the trial should proceed without present delay, but that when 
the prosecution had ended, there would be time granted, if any 
were required, to enable the defense to finish preparation. The 
first work after this was, of course, the impaneling of a jurv — a 
tedious, almost impossible task. When the hour for adjournment 
arrived the first t^fle had been exhausted, and only five jurors 
chosen. The mob was out in force, and the newspaper corre- 
spondents began the conduct of the trial — a work which they 
never relaxed during their six weeks' reign in Judge Cox's court 
room. 

TJ\c second day. — Out of seventy -five men who composed the sec- 
ond tale from which jurors were to be drawn four additional names 
were elected on the second day. The work was exceedingly tedi- 
ous. Names were drawn one by one, and when the person called 
presented himself he was closely questioned, both by the prosecu- 
tion and the defense. All his information relating to the crime, 
the source of the same, his views concerning it, especially his no- 
tions on the topic of insanity, were brought out, and only one in 
many was found sufficiently negative in his opinions and suffi- 
ciently devoid of intelligence to pass the various tests. It is to 
l)e greatly regretted that the breed of goat-logged fauns peculiar 
to the mythology of the ancients was not perpetuated with a spe- 
cial view to supplying American jury-boxes with the proper ma- 



734 THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

terial. Donatello in his adolescence would have made a superb 
foreman. Albeit, on the second day of the trial the demoiselles 
de ville began to constitute a part of the audience which was to 
pass upon the correctness and propriety of Judge Cox's rulings. 
There were many respectable people gathered in the court room, 
some drawn thither by curiosity, and some by business. — So the 
list of seventy-five talesmen having been exhausted, 'the marshal 
was ordered to summon another list of seventy-five for the mor- 
row, and the court adjourned. 

Tlie third day. — On the morning of November 16th the jury 
was completed, and the oath was then administered to them. The 
session was less exciting than on the previous days, the chief in- 
terest centering in the examination of those who were proposed 
for jurors. In this business there were many ludicrous incidents. 
One man, when asked if he was an infidel, replied that he was 
not, according to his best recollection ! Another, on being asked if 
his wife was living, replied, " Yes, what is left of her — not much ! " 
A third patriot told the judge that he ought to be excused for two 
reasons: First, because he thought Guiteau "ought to be hung;" 
and, secondly, because he was '' opposed to capital punishment ! " 
Thus was Thalia's mask put over the face of Melpomene. 

While the examination of the talesmen was in progress, Guiteau 
prepared a characteristic paper, which he directed — 

"2b the Legal Profession of America: 

"I am on trial for my life. I formerly practiced law in New York 
and Chicago, and I propose to take an active part in my defense, as I 
know more about my inspiration and views in the case than any one. 
My brother-in-law, George Scoville, Esq., is my only counsel, and I 
hereby appeal to the legal profession of America for aid. I expect to 
have money shortly so as I can pay them. I shall get it partly from 
settlement of an old matter in New York and partly from the sale of 
my book, and partly from public contribution to my defense. My 
defense was j)ublished in the New York Herald, on October 6, and in 
my speech published November 15 (yesterday). Any well-known lawyer, 
of criminal capacity, desiring to assist in my defense will please tele- 
graph without delay to George Scoville, Washington, D. C. If for any 



THE TWELVE. 735 

reason an application be refused the name will be withheld from the 
public. Charles Guiteau. 

"In Court, Washington, D. C, November 16, 1881." 

The fourth day. — The jjersonnel of the jury was a matter in which 
the public felt not a little interest. The following sketch of the 
men comprising that body will give a fair idea of their general 
character, ability, and manners : 

The foreman, Mr. John P. Hamlin, was a well-know^n saloon- 
keeper of Washington. He was a mild-mannered man, forty-seven 
years of age, and of genial manners. He had a well-shaped head, 
gray hair and mustache, and light eyes. He wore a black cloth 
suit, open vest, turn-down collar, and black tie, and was withal a 
man of some dignity. 

Mr. Frederick W. Brandenberg was a German cigar-maker, 
forty-five years of age ; small of stature, with a head of average 
size, dark brown hair, and large mustache. Mr. Brandenberg also 
wore a black suit, and was credited with paying close attention to 
the proceedings. 

Henry J. Bright, the third member, was a retired merchant, and 
over fifty years of age. He was a rotund and chubby gentleman, 
and gave indications of living well. His forehead was high, eyes 
brown, cropped side whiskers, a full, rounded face, and an aquiline 
nose. His hair parted on the left side. His suit was of dark 
brown and bespoke the tailor's art. 

Charles Stewart, called "the sleeping juror," was a merchant, 
over fifty years of age. He generally rested his head on his hands, 
as if troubled or asleep, and it was fair to presume that he enjoyed 
many a refreshing nap in the court-room during the trial. His 
beard, which, like his hair, was mixed with gray, extended from 
his temples to his chin. 

The next member was an Irishman, named Thomas H. Langley, 
a grocer, forty-eight years of age. Mr. Langley had a low fore- 
head, dark hair, whitened with age, and short side-whiskers. He 
had keen dark eyes and heavy brows, and his face gave evidence 
of intelligent attention. 

Mr. Michael Sheehan was likewise a son of Erin, a well-to-do 



736 THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

grocer, forty-seven years of age. He had reddish-tinted hair of 
fine fiber, and side whiskers, and a clear expression in his keen blue 
eyes. Mr. Sheehan was credited with being the best looking and 
most intelligent juror in the box. These six jurors occupied the 
front row of seats. 

George W. Gates, the youngest member of the jury, was twenty- 
seven years of age. He had black hair and mustache. His eyes 
were wild and fiery, and at times he looked as if he were not en- 
tirely calm and composed. He was rather handsome in his ap- 
pearance; a machinist, and when summoned to serve on the jury 
was at work in the United States navy-yard. 

Thomas Hainline, the eighth member, was an ironworker well 
advanced in years. He had a rounded forehead, and the lower 
part of his face was hidden in bushy iron-gray whiskers and mus- 
tache, ten or twelve inches in length. 

On his right-hand sat Kalph Wormley, a veritable specimen of 
the negro, a laborer, formerly identified with politics in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia. His painful expression and sleepy manner were 
quite noticeable. He wore over his eyes a green bandage, and his 
lace was as solemn as autumn. Owing to his appetite, and the fine 
food with which the jury was served, he made himself sick several 
times during the trial. 

To the right of the colored gentleman sat William H. Browner, 
a well-known commission merchant of Washington. He was a 
middle-aged man, with a round bald head ; a keen man and a close 
observer. He, too, like Mr. Gates, had had a case of insanity in 
his family. 

The next juror, Mr. Hobbs, was a plasterer, and aged sixty-three 
years, being the oldest member of the jury. His thin side-whiskers 
did not detract from the noticeably sad expression of his counte- 
nance. He would sit for an hour or more with his head bowed 
and resting in his hand, as if in sorrowful reverie. His wife had 
died during the trial. 

Joseph Prather, the last juror chosen, was a middle-aged man, 
his business being that of a commission merchant. He had a long, 
hoary beard and mustache, smooth forehead, a large but well- 



^ <0^_^:^ ; ; ;i;^v v:^ : >^; .;:;, 



\ rti 










a 









^ /*t\ 



Un. 












^f^^^j 



OPENING TESTIMONY. 737 ■ 

shaped nose, and bright brown eyes. He, too, was credited with 
paying strict attention to the proceedings. 

The jury, as a whole, was deemed "an excellent one," being 
possessed at least of ordinary common sense. They were selected 
from one hundred and fifty-nine talesmen. 

At the beginning of the session on the morning of the fourth . 
day, District Attorney Corkhill delivered the opening argument 
for the prosecution. In the course of his address he recited in 
general outline the nature of the crime which had been commit- 
ted against the peace of the Nation, and also the line of evidence 
by which this crime was to be fixed on Charles J. Guiteau. The 
prisoner, during the delivery of Corkhill's speech, either read the 
morning papers or occasionally interrupted the speaker with re- 
marks, sometimes shrewd and sometimes foolish. At the close 
of the District Attorney's speech a roar of applause resounded 
through the mob. The sensation of the day, however, was the 
appearance of Secretary Blaine on the witness stand. He gave 
a detailed and lucid account of the tragedy of July 2d, and was 
subjected to a long cross-examination, chiefly on the political 
complications in the Republican party, the object being to show 
that the antagonism between the Stalwarts and Half-breeds was at 
least the occasion of the assassination of Garfield. In the afternoon 
Senor Comacho, the Venezuelan ambassador; Mrs. White, the 
matron of the Baltimore and Potomac depot; Robert A. Parke, 
the ticket agent; Judson W. Wheeler, of Virginia; George W. 
Adams, publisher of the Evening Star, and Jacob P. Smith, jani- 
tor of the depot, — were also examined as to the fact and details 
of the crime which they had witnessed. 

The fifth day. — Long before the hour of opening the criminal 
court, several hundred people, men and women, were crowded into 
the corridors, waiting to be admitted. They had come to see the 
fun : and to conduct the case. At half after nine all seats were 
filled, four-fifths of the space being occupied by women. At that, 
hour the prisoner was brought in and unmanacled. He at once 
began a series of short and generally impertinent speeches to the 
court, interrupting the witnesses, disputing with Mr. Scoville, and 
47 



738 THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

betraying a degree of excitement close akin to insanity. Tiie 
scenes were sometimes wild and threatening, and sometimes merely 
ludicrous. Guiteau insisted that he was his own counsel ; this, of 
course, gave him under the law a right to speak ; and thus much 
being conceded, it was not within the power of Judge Cox's court 
or any other court in the English-speaking world to silence the 
prisoner until he should surpass the bounds which law and prece- 
dent have prescribed for the conduct of attorneys. The shrewd- 
ness of many of Guiteau's comments and rejoinders, his wild ges- 
ticulation, his frequent and excited outbreaks and interruptions, 
were all exceedingly exasperating; and because the court would 
not break the law in an attempt to silence the prisoner, the news- 
paper Bohemians began to pour out on Judge Cox an uninterrupted 
stream of abuse and slander. His court was head-lined in leading 
journals as " Cox's Circus, '* The Criminal Farce," " The Disgrace 
of Cox," etc. 

The day's work was a continuance of the prosecution. The best 
witness of the day was a woman, Mrs. Ella M. Ridgley. She 
testified to hearing the conversation between Guiteau and the 
hackman, while the former was arranging to be driven to the 
cemetery. She also witnessed the shooting, and gave her evidence 
in a clear and straightforward manner. She was closely cross- 
questioned by Scoville, but adhered strictly in every particular to 
the evidence in chief. Being questioned as to Guiteau's manner 
when talking to the hackman, she said he was pale and appeared 
to be troubled. She thought he must be going out to see the 
graves of some dead friends. Witness described minutely the 
shooting, the relative positions of the parties at the time each 
shot was fired, and was positive the first shot took eifect, as the 
President threw up his hands and commenced to sink down. At 
the second shot Guiteau stepped two or three steps nearer and 
held his arm higher. 

Many other witnesses were put upon the stand, but nothing not 
already known and proved Avas elicited. The funny man of the 
day was the Irish policeman, Patrick Kearney, who testified to 
the arrest, which he said was first made by himself as the pris- 



'■'THIS IS A VERTEBRA." 730 

OTiPT vras Tunning; awsy. Ticket agent Parke had already sworn 
that he was the first to seize the assassin, and this point the po- 
liceman controverted with so much zealous brogue as to set tlie 
*'pul>lic"in a roar. President Garfield's private secretary, IMr. 
J. Stanley Brown, also gave important testimony ; the private 
notes addressed by Guiteau to the Chief Magistrate, while seek- 
ing the Paris consulship, were read, and the court adjourned. 

Tht sixth day. — The interest in the trial constantly increased. 
By the close of the first week the crowd had grown so great and 
vociferous that it w^s found necessary to issue cards of admission, 
and these were sought for with more avidity than tickets to the 
opera, with Patti for prima donna> At the opening of the court 
some unimportant testimony was presented, showing that Guiteau 
had been impecunious, that he had borrowed money and had not 
paid, etCn, and then Colonel A. L. Rockwell and General D. G. 
Swaim were put on the stand. The testimony of these distin- 
guished gentlemen covered the period of the President's long 
prostration to the day of his death. Dr. D. W. Bliss, the physi- 
cian in chief, in attendance upon the President, wus then called, 
and gave a narrative of the case and treatment from the time 
when he was summoned, fifteen or twenty minutes after the shoot- 
ing, until his patient died, at Elberon. The sensation of the hour 
came when the District Attorney handed to the doctor a section 
of a human vertebra and asked its identification. The witness 
immediately answered: "This is one of the vertebr83 of the late 
President, James A. Garfield." 

With the augraentation of the crowd in and around the court- 
room a spirit of violence had become manifest which seriously 
threatened the life of the prisoner. He himself realized the situa- 
tion, and before the adjournment of court addressed himself to tlie 
judge, saying; "I desire to call the attention of the court to a 
matter of importance. There are a number of disreputable char- 
acters in the court, and some threats of violence have been made 
during the week past. I have, however, no fear for my personal 
safety. The chief of police has kindly furnished a body-guard, and 
I wish to notify all evil-disposed persons that if they attempt harm 



740 THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

my body-guard will shoot them down; that's all there is about 
that." It was with good reason that the assassin felt alarmed, for 
there were numbers of fellows of his own sort lying in wait to 
kill him. Within a few hours of the utterance by Guiteau, he 
eamc within a hair's breadth of meeting his fate at the hands o^ 
an assassin like himself. 

Late in the afternoon, when the prison van in which he wan 
ensconced was whirling along with the criminal, and was about 
halfway between the Capitol and the jail, a man, named William 
Jones, rode up rapidly in the rear of the van, drew a pistol, fired 
into the vehicle, and dashed away at full speed. He was pursued, 
caught outside of the District, brought back, and lodged in jail. 

The order-loving and law-abiding newspapers chronicled the 
event with the complacent comment that "no jury could be found 
in the United States that would convict a man for killing another 
Under such circumstances." The merit of Jones's performance 
was heightened by the fact that he was very drunk when he fired 
the shot. The bullet, however, came very near the mark. It 
went crashing into the van, grazed Guiteau's arm, and was buried 
in the timber opposite. 

The seventh da?/.— Sunday, the 20th of November, was spent by 
the prisoner in jail, where he was now permitted to see his 
•"'friends." Promptly on Monday morning he was again brought 
into court. As he was hurried through the corridors, jeers and 
hpotings arose as though all Bedlam were turned loose. There 
were four times as many in the crowd as ever before, and it was 
with extreme difficulty that Judge Cox succeeded in entering the 
building. His clothes were ruffled and .his hair disordered when 
he came on the bench. The people in the court-room, however^ 
were of a higher rank than those who had filled the seats during 
the previous week, and there was, consequently, better order : the 
eanaille wa.s howling outside. 

The prosecution had virtually ended with the preceding Sat 
urday. Only a few parting shots were delivered on Monday 
morning, and then, after an episode, the defense began. The epi- 
sode was the retirement of Mr. Leigh Robinson from the case. 



SCOVILLE'S OPENING SPEECH. 741 

He and Mr. Scoville had never agreed. Robinson desired to 
make the defense on the pk^a of malpractice on the part of the 
surgeons in attendance on the President; Scoville preferred the 
plea of insanity. At first, Robinson treated Scoville with dis- 
courtesy, and then Scoville allowed himself to be drawn into some 
criticisms of his associate, which were published, and so Robinson 
withdrew from the defense. 

Soon after the opening of the court, Mr. Scoville appealed to 
the judge to grant Guiteau privilege of speaking. This request the 
judge granted, and so the defense was opened by the prisoner him- 
self, who said a few w^ords as to how he proposed, in conjunction 
with his counsel, to manage his cause. He would "interject" his 
remarks at intervals, as occasion seemed to require, and in the 
final pleadings would make a set speech. The address of Mr- 
Scoville, which followed, was a calm and dispassionate presenta- 
tion of what he hoped to do in this hopeless case. Before the 
conclusion of his speech, the hour for adjournment came, and the 
prisoner was driven back to the jail. 

Tlie eighth day. — Both the forenoon and afternoon sessions were 
occupied with a continuance of Scoville's opening speech. It was 
an eifort of the very highest order of merit, considering the cir- 
cumstances under which it was delivered. 

His manner w^as so " candid and calm, that he had not only the 
attention of the judge, the jury, and the audience, but won their 
sympathy, so that when he made a particularly good point, and 
again when he gave Corkhill a home-thrust, he was heartily ap- 
plauded. Corkhill deserved the stinging rebuke he got, and the 
audience was quick to see it." So said a press report of the day. 
The " audience " was evidently ready to be entertained with any 
thing first-class. Another dispatch of this day's session said of 
Scoville's effort: 

" Scoville is winning golden opinions for himself. Detestable as was 
the crime, detestable as is the man if he be sane, no one can help feel- 
ing respect and even admiration for his brother-in-law, who, believing 
him insane, stands by him in the extremity at great personal sacrifice." 



"^2 THE LIFE AXD TRIAL OF GUITEAF. 

The address of the defendant's attorney lasted during the day 
and was continued to the morrow. 

Tlie ninth day. — The clouds conspired against the crowd. The 
former poured down and the latter scattered. There was more 
quiet in court. The tone of the audience was greatly improved. 
Distinguished gentlemen and ladies sat and listened to the pro- 
ceedings. Scoville jfinished his address. Seven w^itnesses were 
called for the defense in the course of the day, and all testified, 
with greater or less emphasis, to the existence of an insane streak 
in the prisoner's family. As to Guiteau himself, a good deal of 
evidence, direct and inferential, was given. Dr. John A. Rice, 
of Minton, Wisconsin, a practicing physician for twenty-six years, 
testified that, he examined the prisoner in 1876, and came to the 
conclusion that he was insane. His insanity was emotional rather 
than intellectual. There appeared to be an impairment of judg- 
ment, but not much, if any, inipairment of intellect. He had told 
his friends that Guiteau ought to be secluded. Among the ludic- 
rous things of the day was the evidence which established the fact 
that Guiteau had, while passing some time, in 1876, on the farm 
of his brother-in-law, in Wisconsin, undertaken to make some 
Jiickory saplings bear fruit by aniio'mting them vnth soap! At the 
end of the proceedings the court adjourned until Friday, the mor- 
row being Thanksgiving day. 

The tenth day. — At the opening of the court Judge Cox took 
occasion to read the populace a lecture on the matter of decorum, 
and the court outside of the bar was for once given to understand 
that order would henceforth be maintained at all hazards. The 
examination of witnesses for the defense was then continued by 
Mr. Scoville assisted by Mr. Charles H. Reed, of Chicago, who, 
after the retiracy of Robinson, had been appointed by the judge 
as associate counsel for the defense. Mr. Reed himself took the 
witness stand and gave testimony as to Guiteau's career while 
attem]iting to practice law in Chicago. The relations of the Gui- 
teau family with the Oneida Community, and especially the views 
of the prisoner's father on the religious and socialistic phase of 
that society, were brought out in the testimony of Thomas North 



IS HE INSANE? 'J'i3 

who had known by personal acquaintance the facts in the premises. 
The names of John A. Logan and Emory A. Storrs Avere called, 
but neither responded to the call. The proceedings of the day 
were constantly interrupted by the prisoner who persisted in inter- 
jecting comments, contradictions, corrections, and even witticisms — 
sometimes stupid and sometimes full of pith — into whatever was 
done. 

The eleventh day. — There was a farther improvement in order. 
A company of Congressmen made up a part of the audience, as 
did also many of the teachers of the public schools. The princi- 
pal witness of the day was Senator John A. Logan who testified 
to the fact that previous to the shooting he had advised the land- 
lady of the hotel where Guiteau was boarding that she should dis- 
miss him from her table as he (Logan) regarded him as deranged 
mentally. The other witnesses were Thomas North, Edward E. 
Smith, Secretary of the National Republican Committee, John A. 
Morse, and Mrs. Scovillc, the prisoner's sister. The general effect 
of the testimony was to strengthen the theory of Guiteau's in- 
sanity. The evidence was such as to make it certain that Guiteau's 
conduct and life had for many years been of a sort to establish at 
last the suspicion of insanity. Meanwhile many " experts "—that 
is, gentlemen who had had large experience and observation respect- 
ing persons mentally deranged — had been summoned as witnesses, 
and were present from day to day in the court-room, observing the 
prisoner and studying the question on which they were to testify. 
At the close of Mrs. Scoville's testimony the court adjourned unt"l 
Monday. 

The twelfth day. — By the beginning of the third week of the 
trial all the issues involved therein had narrowed to one, namely, 
the responsibility of the prisoner in view of his antecedents and 
mental condition when the crime was committed. Along this line 
all the subsequent contest was waged. It was at this point that the 
mistake of the country was made. The country forgot its judg- 
ment in its anger. The country could not — would not — brook the 
murder of Garfield. This was just and right. But the country in 
its anger forgot one consideration of the most serious consequence, 



744 THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

and that was the ixfixite I^rPonTAXCE to the American Re- 
public OF A JUI>ICIAL decision IN FAVOR OF THE PRISONEE'b 

INSANITY. If that insanity should be established, the President's 
death, historically considered, would be henceforth regarded in the 
light of a calamitous accident; just as though he had died from 
the bite of a rattlesnake or a rabid dog. If, on the other hand, it 
should be established that the prisoner was sane, it would be, his- 
torically considered, an indisputable proof that even in the United 
States the crime of political assassination was ushered in. Unfort- 
unately for our country and age the American people have pre- 
ferred the worthless life of a depraved and misshapen half-lunatic, 
born in the midst of a prolonged illness of his mother and of a 
tainted ancestry, unable to speak until he was seven years old, the 
victim of wild and fatal delusions in his youth, without judgment 
or common sense at any period of his life, — the American people 
have preferred the pitiful gratification of extinguishing this miser- 
able clown to the future safety and welfare of the Nation! The 
day comes when these words now trodden under foot of a justifia- 
ble anger will receive the indorsement of every thoughtful patriot. 

The session of Monday was devoted to the further testimony of 
Mrs. Scoville, and of George D. Burroughs, C. S. Jocelyn, John 
W. Guiteau, brother of the prisoner, Sarah Parker, and Fernando 
Jones. After the testimony of the last named had been given, the 
prisoner himself was put upon the stand, not for his testimony in 
chief, but to identify some letters. It was a strange spectacle to 
see the wretch with his lopsided head and projecting cars as he 
sat in the witness stand with three policemen interposed between 
himself and the crowd. 

The thirteenth day. — The whole of Tuesday, November 29th, was 
devoted to the testimony of Guiteau himself. He recounted the 
.story of his life, his projects, his follies, his crimes. Meantime the 
experts sat with note-book in hand watching his peculiarities and 
recording his mental characteristics. Quite a distinguished array 
of these specialists was now present, including Dr. Henry Stearns, 
of Hartford ; Dr. Theodore W. Fisher, of Boston; Dr. Charles H. 
Nicholls, of Bloomingdale; Dr. Theodore Diamond, of Auburn; 



THREATENING THE JUDGE AND JURY. 745 

Dr. Walter Clianning, of Brookline; Dr. Samuel Worcester, of 
Salem, Massachusetts ; Dr. Pliny Earle, of Northampton ; Dr. J. 
H. INIcBride, of Wisconsin ; Dr. James G. Kcrnan, of Chicago ; Dr. 
Charles F. Folsom, of Boston; Dr. John A. Rice, of Wisconsin; 
Dr. A. W. Sherr, of Connecticut, and Dr. Kempster, of Wisconsin. 
Most of these gentlemen had been summoned by the prosecution, 
but as yet it was not known what would be the character of their 
testimony. 

The fourteenth day. — Like tlie preceding day, Wednesday was 
wholly devoted to the evidence given by the prisoner. It was 
the same story with which the public was already familiar. Late 
in the afternoon the cross-examination of the witness was begun, 
the same being conducted by Judge Porter. 

No account of this remarkable trial would be complete that 
failed to exhibit the latent lawlessness which was developed in 
many ])arts of the country. During the progress of the cause, 
when Judge Cox was struggling to secure for the prisoner a fair 
trial and repress the roaring sea which raged around his court, he 
received on the average ;i dozen letters a day, threatening himself, 
the jury, and the prisoner with a common destruction in case the 
latter should be acquitted. The following was received during 
the delivery of Guiteau's testimony: 

"Milwaukee, Wis., November 26, 1881. 
"To C. J. Guiteau, Judge Cox, and the Jury who are now trying Guiteau: 
" Gentlemen : You are hereby notified that if the trial of Guiteau 
for the murder of General J. A. Garfield results in the acquittal of the 
prisoner, he and you may commend your souls to a merciful God, and 
say farewell to your relatives. We are now one thousand strong in this 
city. Branch organizations are being formed in all the principal cities 
in the country. We expect twenty thousand from New York, and the 
whole State of Ohio. Have you heard of 'Lou' Williams? Our object 
is 'Death to Guiteau!' And he can not escape, as, if he is acquitted or 
declared insane, we are sworn to march to Washington and lynch the 
assassin,^ together with Judge Cox, and the jury. Outraged Justice de- 
mands a sacrifice for the deliberate nuu'der of the noble Garfield, for the 
farce which has been permitted to invade her solemn temples, for the 



746 THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

prostitution of tlie law at the Lands of the miserable Cox. One has failed, 
but there are thousands who have yet to fail. Beware. [Sigi-ied.] 

"The President of Garfield Avengers." 

The presence and manifestation of such a spirit in our country- 
is more dangerous to the perpetuity of American liberty than was 
the assassination of the President. 

The fifteenth day. — The whole of Thursday was in like manner 
consumed with the prisoner's examination. For five hours he 
occupied the stand, under the cross-questioning of Judge Porter. 
At times he became excited, and again there were fitful gleams of 
wit and even of shrewdness in his replies. When hard pressed he 
showed signs of anger, beating the desk to emphasize his answers, 
or refusing to answer at all. And so the day wore through, and 
the court adjourned. 

The sixteenth day. — Up to this stage of the trial Mr. Scoville 
had conducted the defense by himself. Judge Cox now named an 
assistant in the person of Mr. Charles H. Reed, of Chicago, who 
from this time forth acted in conjunction with Scoville. The 
larger part of this day was, like the three preceding, occupied 
with the examination of Guitcau. The prisoner, by the close of 
this long and persistent questioning, was greatly reduced. Pie 
looked like a man exhausted, starved to the verge of madness. 
After he retired from the stand the examination of the experts 
began with the call of Dr. Alexander Hall, of Columbus. The 
Doctor had heard Guiteau try to lecture several years previously, 
and had come to the conclusion that he was a lunatic. 

The seventeenth day. — On the following morning there was a 
sensation in the court room, occasioned by the presence in the 
witness box of Senator David Davis, of Illinois, president pro 
tempore of the Senate of the United States. He had been called 
to testify on the political situation in the summer of 1881. After 
the retirement of Senator Davis, Emory A. Storrs, of Chicago, 
who had l)een called several days previously, appeared and gave 
his evidence, which covered his knowledge and observation of 
Guiteau while pretending to practice law in the same city with 



" COUXTEE-ATTRACTION " IN WASHINGTON. 747 

himself. A scene ensued M-hen Bailey, the stenographer, was 
called. Guiteau became at once excited. He charged the witness 
with coming to him as a New York Herald reporter and tricking 
him into an interview, the notes of which were used by the Dis- 
trict Attorney. Bailey afterwards made up a report from his notes 
for the New York Herald, and Guiteau wanted to know what he 
received for it. It was finally brought out that Bailey had been 
given §500 for the production. It being Saturday night, the court 
adjourned till Monday. 

The eighteenth day. — This being December oth, the morning for 
the opening of the XLVIIth Congress, the trial was not so largely 
attended. The newspapers spoke of the opening ceremonies in the 
House as " a counter-attraction." To denounce Judge Cox's court 
as " a circus," and then speak of the American Congress as " a 
counter-attraction," was the average newspaper ideal of tlie best 
method of inculcating respect fur the law and the Government! 
The eighteenth day of the trial was devoted almost exclusively to 
the expert testimony. Drs. Kennon, Hinton, Nicholas, Folsom, 
AVorcester, Godding, jSIcBride, and Fisher, were examined during 
the day, and all testified that on the establishment of the facts as 
presented in the hypothesis of the defense they should regard the 
prisoner as insane. It was felt in all newspaperdom that this evi- 
dence was likely in Guiteau's case to substitute the insane asylum 
for the gallows, and, in anticipation of such a verdict, the journals 
both of America and England began to beat upon another line. 
This sentiment found utterance in an article in the London Daily 
Telegrojjh of December 5th, which says : 

" 111 such cases [as that of Guiteau] the verdict of mankind at large is 
more to be trusted than a jury, and undoubtedly the general voice demands 
that Guiteau should pay the full ])eiialty of his crime." 

The nineteenth day. — At the opening of the court on Tuesday, 
December^ 6th, Guiteau, acting as his own counsel, wrote out and 
sent up to the judge the following document: 

" In the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, liolding a Criminal 
Term of the June Term, 1881. The United States vs. Charles J. Guiteau. 



748 THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

Case No. 14,056. Indictment for murder. December 6, 188 L On mo- 
tion of Cliarles J. Guiteau, the defendant, who appears in this case in his 
own proper person, it is hereby ordered that the defendant have subpoenas 
for the following named witnesses: U. S. Grant, Roscoe Conkling, Thomas 
C. Piatt, W. H. Robertson, Marshall Jewell, S. W. Dorsey, Whitelaw 
Reid, James Gordon Bennett, William Henry Hurlbut, Charles A. Dana, 
George Jones, William Penn Nixon, Hugh Hastings, and five additional 
Avitnesses heretofore ordered, the fees thereof and costs of services to be 
paid in the same manner as Government witnesses are paid, according to 
the statute in such cases made and provided." 

The jiulge took this application under advisement, and the trial 
proceeded. The conduct of the prisoner was the most violent yet 
exhibited — a strange show of arrogance and self-conceit. The pro- 
ceedings embraced a large amount of testimony on the subject of 
the quarrels in the Republican party after the inauguration of 
President Garfield. The two most important witnesses were George 
C. Gorham, Esq., editor of the National Republican, and Charles 
B. Farwell, member of Congress from Illinois. Near the close of 
the session another scene occurred when Mr. Scoville began read- 
ing some extracts from Guiteau's pamphlet, "Truth." The elocu- 
tion of the reader did not satisfy the author, and he demanded to 
read himself Permission was granted, and he began reading. He 
apologized to the audience, by way of preface, by saying, " Ladies 
and gentlemen — I have not had any practice for so long that my 
voice may be a little husky. I will, however, do the best I can. 
I hope you will give me your attention. You will find some very 
interesting reading." 

Confusion ensued in the rear of the court-room, which greatly 
annoyed Guiteau, and he appealed petulantly to Judge Cox, say- 
in"-, " I must have order in this room, or I can not be heard." 
Then turning partly round to the audience — " If any one wants 
to go out, let him go out now ; but you must keep order." 

Thirty minutes were occupied in reading, when the hour for 
recess arrived. Counsel for the prosecution objected to the read- 
ing of the entire book, and, after discussion, it was arranged that 
Scoville should mark such passages as he intends to rely upon in 



TESTIMONY OF THE TKESIDENT. 749 

his argument, and submit the book to the prosecuiion to-morrow. 
After this episode Mr. Scoville announced that the deilusc wa.s 
closed, and the court adjourned. 

The twentieth daij. — The court declined to issue subpccnas for the 
big witnesses ivhom Guiteau had named in his list. This made 
the prisoner angry. At the opening of the session the prose^-ution 
began in rebuttal. The first witness called was General Sherman. 
He explained the order which he had issued on the day of the 
assassination, stated his apprehensions at the time that there wa.^ 
a conspiracy, and that that belief had been dissipated, and identi- 
fied the letter which Guiteau had written to him on the day of 
the crime. Then followed the evidence of various experts and 
witnesses, to the eft'cct that they had had opportunity of observa- 
tion, and did not consider Guiteau insane or irresponsible for his 
act. Some of these witnesses were old acquaintances of the Gui- 
teau family in Illinois, and their evidence was of importance as 
showing the belief of those who were familiar with the prisoner's 
history. 

The twenty-first day. — During this day a communication was re- 
ceived from the President of the United States, embracing a list 
of answers to questions which had been submitted by defendant's 
counsel. The evidence thus presented covered the relations of 
Guiteau to the Presidential campaign of 1880, in the State of New 
York. The President stated that he had seen Guiteau ic^u, or 
perhaps twenty, times; that the latter had delivered (at his own 
request) a few speeches in the interest of the Republican candidates, 
but that he (President Arthur) regarded the alleged "services" of 
the prisoner as of no value whatever to the party; and, in short, 
that Guiteau had no political claim to preferment. The rest of the 
testimony presented during the day was in rebuttal of that given 
by the witnesses for the defense in favor of the prisoner's insanity. 
The evidence of Rev. R. A. McArthur, a Baptist preacher of New 
York, bore heavily on Guiteau, establishing the fact that his life^ 
while living in that city, had been disreputable and vik\ 

The tirenty-second day. — The trial on Friday dragged through 
in the same way as hitherto. Perhaps the interruptions of the 



750 THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEaU. 

proceedings by the prisoner were more frequent and violent than 
usual Tlic testimony of Mc Arthur, the minister, created intense 
excitement in Guiteau, who vociferated and denounced the witness 
in unmeasured terms. Dr. W. I. Caldwell, George W. Plummer, 
a lawyer of Chicago ; Stephen English, an insurance agent ; War- 
ren G. Brown, an attorney of New York ; D. McLean Shaw, Charles 
H. Wehle, and Senator Benjamin Harrison, of Indiana, — all gave 
testimony during the day, and the evidence was in the aggregate 
damaging to the theory of the defense. The preponderance of 
testimony was to the effect that Guiteau had been regarded by his 
acquaintances as sane. So much could hardly be said of a certain 
theological crank of Detroit who on this day sent to the District 
Attorney's office the following effusion : 

" Detroit, Mich., December 2, 1881. 
"Sin: On the night of the last of April I was entranced and shown 
visions oneerning the future, and the spirit of God was upon me four- 
teen day.s. The guards could not look me in the face without turning 
blind. Then they made up a plot to take my life; then I was carried to 
the President in a vision and shown to him in his library at the Wliite 
House. When it was iirst shown to him he said I should be shot for an 
impostor, but the angel told him something that would shortly come to 
pass, and asked him what he would do if he found it true. He said he 
would save my life if the whole Nation should rebel, so he should not be 
found fighting against God. Then he and his noble wife were brought 
to the Detroit House of Correction and shown my cell. Then the spirit 
brought him around, and showed him the bench where he would find me 
workings and then told him to come down and see me. On the night 
of the 9th at midnight he arrived, him and his wife. I was dozing a 
little, and the spirit shook me, and I sat up and heard him converse. 
About tlie first thing he asked was if I was dead; if the guards had 
tried to shoot me about fifteen minutes before ; but he was struck motion- 
less. The npxt day the President and Mrs. Garfield visited him again. 
Then the President was also shown what the new Government all over 
the earth should be, but I can not here describe it; it would take too 
long, there being so many changes. But to the -many in the United 
States I write these few lines because of Guiteau's saying he is "in- 
spired." By what? The devil. Do you suppose the Lord put the 



DR. SPITZKA TESTIFIES. 751 

Presifleiit into tlie office and tlicn inspired a man to slied innocent blood. 
I wrote to the President about the 22d of May, telling him that either 
him or his wife would be assassinated. The spirit of God was upon his 
wife, and that is why she kept np so. If I should pass sentence upon 
the assasshi I should hang him according to the law of God, for no man 
can touch the Lord's anointed and be guiltless." 

The furniy-fhird clay. — An adjournment of the court carried the 
case over to Monday, the l'2th of December. The reporters spent 
Saturday and Sunday in canvassing the views of the sixteen ex- 
perts who were now in waiting to testify for the prosecution. By 
the diligence which characterizes that guild the ideas of the doctors 
were duly extracted and given to the country in advance of the 
testimony. It was a further evidence of the extreme delicacy and 
sense of propriety which from the beginning had marked the out- 
side management of the case, that the evidence of learned men 
could thus be obtained and sent foith before it had been sanc- 
tioned by an oath. With the opening of the court on Monday 
morning a great excitement ensued on account of the testimony 
of Dr. Edward Charles Spitzka, a brilliant young medical specialist 
of New York City. He occupied the witness stand all day long, 
and his evidence was on the whole the most able of any given 
during the trial. The special correspondent of the Cincinnati 
Commercial gave the following notice of Dr. Spitzka and his testi- 
mony : 

" Dragged here under a writ of attachment, having disobeyed a writ 
of subpoena, and compdled by the court to answer the questions put to 
him, he occupied a strong position, rendered almost impregnable by his 
thorough acquaintance with the general and the particular subject under 
consideration. Keen-witted., talented, with a well-furnished mind, he 
held his own under unusually severe cross-examination extending through 
both sessions of to-day, and which may extend through the two sessions of 
to-morrow. The prosecution is trying to-night to find something in his 
record, if not in his evidence, on which to hang a crushing remark to- 
morrow in the cross-examination. 

"Spitzka, who is a fresh-faced blonde, with a good face fringed Avith 
sandy whiskers and ornamented with a sandy mustache, well-informed, with 



752 THE LIFE AND TPJAL OE GUITEAU. 

quick perceptions, and a retentive memory, came on the stand prepared 
for all that was to come, and left the stand with honor to himself, A 
great deal of nonsense in disparagement of Spitzka's evidence has been 
uttered to-niuht by men who were not within a mile of the court-room at 
any time to-day. Men Avho were there know that he was a most excel- 
lent witness for the defense, and that he worsted Davidge and Corkhill. 
Boiled down, his testimony is to the effect that Guiteau is a moral mon- 
strosity, an insane man ; that he was born with a malformed brain which 
has misdirected his whole life. He thinks that he oaght to be incar- 
cerated in an insane asylum. He was not allowed to say whether he con- 
sidered him legally responsible, but the inference from what be said was 
that he did not. On the whole he was a strong witness for the defense, 
and while his testimony will be flatly contradicted by a dozen experts 
summoned by the Government, it produced a marked impression." * 

The tireniy -fourth day. — On Tuesday morning Dr. Spitzka con- 
tinued his testimony, in the course of which he advanced a proposi- 
tion which ought to be framed and hung in the corridors of every 
(lourt-house. It was that the value of expert evidence in any 
case depends upon the condition that the experts shall have been 
summoned by the court, and not by cither the prosecution or the 
defense. The testimony being scientific in its nature, any previous 
expectancy of what that testimony will be, created by the fact that 

■■•'Dr. Spitzka had been one of the professors in the Veterinary College of New 
York. The attorneys for the prosecution thought they discovered in this fact an 
opportunity to destroy the professional reputation of the witness, and tried to do so, 
with the following result as told by the Associated Press: 

"The cross-examination was quite pointedly directed to witness's practice and 
standing as an expert, and inquiries were made as to witness's position as Professor 
of the veterinary school. 

"Hcoville objected to the question as not pertinent, 

"Davidge replied: 'The attainments of this witness have been paraded by 
counsel on the other side, and we think it decidedly pertinent to this case to dis- 
cover what opportunities for professional acquirements witness has enjoyed.' 

"Scoville noted an exception. 

"Witness had no reasons to feel ashamed of his sphere of duty in that connection. 

" Davidge — Yes; but your treatment at that time must have been confined to horses, 
and those gentlemen, then, are what are known as liorse-doctors. Are they not? 

"Witness (reddening, and with some excitement) — My treatment has been con- 
fined to asses. When an ass with two lcg,s asks me a stupid question I endeavor to 
treat him as he deserves. [General laughter.]" 



"NOT SHREWD, BUT CUTE." 753 

the expert giving it has been summoned by one of the parties to 
the eause, vitiates the evidence and renders it worse than worthless. 
The truth of these propositions can not be successfully assailed. 
During the day's proceedings Dr. Fordyce Barker, of New York, 
was called to the witness stand, and testified that he regarded the 
}>risoner as sane. L. I. Gobcll, of the same city, testified to dis- 
honest acts on the part of Guitcau. B. T. Ketcham and Henry 
Wood also gave damaging evidence tending to show that the pris- 
oner had led a bad life while in Ncav York and Philadelphia. Sam- 
uel P. Phelps, a broker of the former city, related how Guiteau had 
attempted to induce him to enter a gigantic newspaper enterprise, 
in which Phelps was to be editor-in-chief. 

llie hoeniy-fijth day. — The weather lowered, but the crowd could 
not be kept at bay. At the opening of the court on Wednesday, Mr. 
Gates, the twelfth juryman, on coming into the room, was attacked 
with vertigo, and, after a half hour, the session was adjourned. Only 
three witnesses were examined before the proceedings were suspend- 
ed fitr the day. These were Dr. J. L. Withrow, of Boston, and C. A. 
Bryan and H. M. Collier, of New York. Dr. Withrow testified; 

Guiteau had attended his church in 1878, 187'J, and 1880, represent- 
ing himself to be a co-worker with Moody and Sankey in Chicago. Dr. 
Withrow was called upon by many "co-workers" about the same time, 
and saw nothing remarkable about this one. He wanted the use of the 
I'ark Street Church to answer Ingersoll in, and was refused. Dr. Witkrow 
not being in the business of replying to Ingersoll. He spoke, however, 
often in the Friday evening meetings, and attended a sociable or two. 
He appeared to be perfectly sane. He considered him a shrewd man; 
"not shrewd, perliaps," he added, "but cute." 

" Wiiat's the difierenee, Doctor?" spoke Hip Guiteau, who had inter- 
rupted less frequently and more respectfully than usual. 

"One is sharper than the other," replied Dr. Withrow, courteously. 

"Yes," said Corkhill, "and smaller." 

"And smaller!" added the witness. 

" He didn't say that, Corkhill," said Guiteau; " yoii said that. That's 
the smartest thing you 've said on this case. You must have slept well ! " 

The incident of the day, after the adjournment of the court, was 
the delivery In the evening, by Mr. Scoville, of a lecture on the 
48 



754 THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

subject of the trial. Lincoln Hall was engaged, and a respectable 
audience assembled to hear the address, the proceeds being de- 
voted to the expenses of the defense in the trial. 

The hoi'nty-slxth day. — At the opening of court the jury came 
up in good order. The proceedings began with the continuance 
of the testimony of Mr. Collier. He believed the prisoner sane 
in 1873. J. M. Justice, of Logansport, Indiana, knew Guiteau in 
1878, when he was engaged in selling the Life of Moochj. Wit- 
ness thought the prisoner sane at the time referred to. Rev. E. 
H. Shippen, of Washington, testified that he knew Guiteau, and 
considered him sane; he had boarded at the same house with the 
prisoner. INIrs. Dunmire, the former wife of Guiteau, now di- 
vorced, and married to another man, was called to the stand and 
was about to testify, when Mr. Seoville demanded that the decree 
of divorce should be before the court, and this being not forth- 
coming, the witness was withdrawn. Dr. Noble Young, the phy- 
sician at the jail, had watched the prisoner from the time of the 
incarceration, and believed him to have been a sane man. The 
rest of the day was occupied by General J. S. Reynolds, of Chi- 
cago. AVith him Guiteau had studied law in 1868. The witness 
had come to Washington, had made three visits to Guiteau's cell, 
had represented himself as his friend, had obtained damaging ad- 
missions, and had been paid $85 by the prosecution for doing so. 
It was a most disreputable piece of business, but — succeeded. 

The twoitij-seventh day. — When court opened on this day, evi- 
dence was introduced to prove that the divorce of Guiteau and 
his former wife had been regularly procured, the object being to 
enable the wife to testify against the husband. Testimony to this 
effect was given by George D. Barnard, of Brooklyn. General 
Reynolds was recalled and cross-examined by Seoville. After 
this, Mrs. Grave, with whom Guiteau boarded before the assassina- 
tion, was put upon the stand, and testified that she did not con- 
sider him insane. Next, the divorced wife, Mrs. Anna J. Dun- 
mire, was called and answered a few simple questions. No attempt 
was made to unearth the wedded character of the prisoner, and 
the witness was jjrcsently excused. The work of the session was 



"WE CONSIDER HIM SANE." 755 

concluded with the testimony of Drs. F. B. Loring and A. McLean 
both of whom had scrutinized Guiteau's conduct, and had not 
observed any thing to fasten on the minds of the witnesses the 
conviction of insanity.. During the whole day, as on the pre- 
ceding, the prisoner continued to interrupt the proceedings with 
vociferous comments, many of which were an affront to the court 
and insulting to the witnesses. At the close of the session there 
was an adjournment until Monday. 

The twenty-eighth day. — On Sunday, the 17th of December^ 
Guiteau gave to the agent of the Associated Press a long review 
of the trial. It was filled with reiterations of his former utter- 
ances on the question of " inspiration " and kindred topics. The 
Deity had influenced him to the act. The Lord had protected 
him thus far, and would continue to do so. The public mind was 
reiicting in his favor, etc. The vacation was occupied by the jury 
with a trip into the country, where they found recreation in a game 
of quoits. On the opening of the court on Monday morning it 
transpired that the wife of Juryman Hobbs had died the day 
before, and on motion of the District Attorney, seconded by Mr. 
Scoville, leave of absence was granted to Mr. Hobbs to attend the 
funeral. After a few unimportant measures, arising from the con- 
tinuance of the cause, the court then adjourned until the morning 
of the 21st. 

The tii'enty-n'mth day. — After an intermission of four days the 
trial was resumed pursuant to adjournment. Dr. Hamilton, of 
New York, was called and testified that he regarded Guiteau as a ■ 
sane man, or at any rate not under the influence of irrational im- 
pulses to the extent of rendering him irresponsible for his acts. 
Of a like tenor, but more explicit and elaborate, was the evidence 
of Dr. Worcester, of Salem, jNIassachusetts.* He had been sum- 
moned to Washington in obedience to a letter voluntarily written 
by himself to Scoville, to the purpose that he (Dr. Worcester) 
belieyed Guiteau to be insane, and might be of some service if he 
were summoned. He was accordingly subpoenaed, but on reach- 

■ It may be uncharitable to say so, but Salem, Massachusetts, is a bad place to 
hail from when it comes to testifying on the question of insane delusions. 



756 THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

ing Washington he changed his mind, and was sent to the stand 
by the prosecution. The transaction was not very creditable to 
the chief actors, but the Doctor's evidence was to the point and 
greatly damaged the cause which he had come to defend. The 
occasion was of a kind to bring out all the malignity and passion 
of the prisoner, who with great violence denounced the witness 
and Colonel Corkhill as "treacherous scoundrels," "liars," etc. 
Part of the scenes of the day quite beggared description, and would, 
but for the peculiar circumstances of the case, have been discred- 
itable to the court.* 

The thirtieth day. — Some days before the present stage of tlic 
trial a certain D. McLean Shaw, lawyer, of New York, had given 
on the witness stand a statement that he had formerly heard Gui- 
teau say that he was going to be notorious if he had to imitate 
John Wilkes Booth. The evidence was highly sensational. Scoville, 
with deliberate cruelty, hunted up Shaw's record, and that gentle- 
men was recalled rather to give an account of himself than to 
produce further sensations. Shaw was a nervous man, of a sanguine 
temperament, with a weak face, whose muscles twitched constantly^ 
his face fringed with thin, dark-colored whiskers. He was aware 
that the assassin and his counsel had publicly accused him of 
having escaped punishment for perjury in a New Jersey court on 
a technical quibble, and he was in a very uncomfortable state of 

*In attempting to realize the wild scones of this memorable trial it should not 
be forgotten that occasionally Guiteau, in the midst of his outrageous indecorum 
and abuse, drove home a point against some double dealing on the part of the 
prosecution with the vengeance of a madman, as in the following instance: On this 
♦ lie 21st day of December it was attempted to prove that Guiteau had never 
advanced his theory of "inspiration " until the 19th of July. The prisoner there- 
upon broke forth: 

"I want it distinctly understood that on the 3d of July I gave Colonel Corkhill 
and his reporter, in a two-hours' interview, my views on this whole subject— ;he 
inspiration, the political situation, and all the causes that impelled me on the 
President — and this man Corkhill destroyed his notes, so he could not use them 
upon this trial. It's a burning shame for him to come in here now and say I never 
Haid any thing about inspiration until three weeks after the shooting." 

This was a "true bill" against the District Attorney, and he may have winced 
a little under the assassin's furious onslaught. 



THE EXPERTS TESTIFY. 757 

mind. Guiteau greeted him reassuringly with, " This is a Shaw, 
the fellow who perjured himself here and in New Jersey — the 
fellow who told that big lie about my intention to imitate Wilkes 
Booth. We've got your record, Shaw. We'll nail you. We'll 
show that you committed perjury in New Jersey, and only escaped 
conviction on a technicality. We'll show that the Judge said 
from the bench that you ought to be in the State's prison." 

Scoville promptly took up the strain, and deliberately estab- 
lished the truth of what the prisoner had threatened ! Outside 
of this episode the principal interest of the day centered in the 
evidence of Dr. Theodore Diamond, of Auburn, New York. The 
witness had been summoned for the defense and retained by the 
prosecution. He believed, judging by the evidence to which he 
had listened, including that of the prisoner himself, and from the 
appearance and conduct of the prisoner, that he was a sane man. 

The hypothetical questions put to Dr. Worcester, on the day 
before, were then read to witness, and he replied, " I should say 
he was sane." 

The. thirff/-first day. — Two additional experts were put on the 
stand, and they testified that, in their opinion, the prisoner was 
sane and responsible for his acts. Th& first of these was Dr. 
Spencer H. Talcott, superintendent of the Homoeopathic Asylum 
for the Insane, at Middletown, New Jersey, and Dr. Henry P. 
Hcarns, superintendent of the Hartford Institution for the Insane, 
at Hartford. Both Avere gentlemen of attainments, and their evi- 
dence to the effect that they had visited the prisoner in jail and 
observed him attentively during the trial, and that they considered 
him a sane man, was very damaging to the theory of the defense, 
and was not materially shaken by the severe cross-examination to 
which they were subjected. The sole circumstance which tended 
to vitiate the evidence of these distinguished gentlemen, was the 
fact that, being witnesses for the Government, they w^ere entitled 
to and received compensation for their attendance and testimony ; 
while, on the other hand, the chief strength of the evidence of Dr. 
Spitzka, and a few others holding the opposite view, was the fact 
that they were brought to Washington under attachment, without 



758 THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

compensation, and were compelled by their judgment to give testi- 
mony calculated to injure them in their business, and even to ex- 
pose their persons to insult and violence.* The remaining witness 
was a character, one William A. Edwards, a law clerk of that 
Shaw who had testified to the threat of Guiteau to imitate, if need 
be, the audacity of Wilkes Booth. Before the examination of the 
witness was over, Mr. Beed made him admit, without explanation, 
that D. McLean Shaw, whose testimony he was called to corrobo- 
rate, had been indicted and tried for perjury; that Shaw had sworn 
falsely in detailing the conversation in his office, ten years ago, 
wherein Guiteau said he proposed to win notoriety if he had to 
imitate Wilkes Booth ; that Guiteau and he were alone ; that Shaw- 
had exaggerated the strength of Guiteau's statement in that con- 
versation; that neither Shaw^ nor himself attached any importance 
to the assertion of Guiteau, and that both considered him " strange," 
but harmless. 

The thirl y-sccmid day. — The cross-examination of Dr„ Stearns, 
of Hartford, was the principal work in the early part of the session. 
This Avas attended with much excitement, and some bad blood on 
the part of the lawyers. The prisoner was extremely noisy and 
abusive, insomuch that Avhen the District Attorney suggested that 
the prisoner should be put into the criminal dock, instead of being 
permitted to sit at the table with his counsel. Judge Cox said in 
reply that he had already considered the advisability of such a 
proceeding on the part of the court. The rest of the day was 
occupied with the testimony of Dr. Jamin Strong, of Cleveland, 
Dr. Abram M. Shaw, superintendent of the Connecticut Hospital 
for the Insane, and Dr. Orpheus Evarts, superintendent of a pri- 
vate insane asylum at College Hill, Ohio. All of these experts 
coincided in the main points, namely, that Guiteau, according to 

■'■'It may be appropriately cited in this connection that, on the day fullowins; 
liis testimony, Dr. Spilzka, while the attorneys were discussing him as "a horse- 
doctor," and the newspaper correspondents were starting a transcontinental chorus 
(if hisses, received 203 letters, of which 200 were from persons of character— some 
of them eminent — commending liim for tlie matter and spirit of his evidence, 
and the remaining three were denunciatory, and filled with threats of personal 
violence. 



"A MEIIRY CHEISTMAS, AND MANY RETURNS." 759 

their judgment, was virtually a sane man at the time of the trial, 
and had been so at the time of the assassination. During the tes- 
timony of Dr. Strong, the question of putting the prisoner into the 
dock was again mooted, and it became evident that the court did 
not look unfavorably upon the proposition. Even Mr. Scovillc, 
worn out with the prisoner's interruptions and abuse, assented in 
a measure to the proposed seclusion of his boisterous and unman- 
ageable client. It was Christmas eve, and the court was declared 
adjourned until the morning of Tuesday, December 27th. 

The thirty-tliird day. — Guitcau spent a cheerful Christmas in the 
jail. He ate heartily, talked in great good humor to his friends 
and kinsfolk, wished everybody a merry Christmas and many returns 
of it — just as though he expected to be here to see! Strange de- 
luded wretch! Depraved human enigma! 

At the opening of the court. Dr. A. E. McDonald, the distin- 
guished superintendent of Ward's Island Insane Hospital, testified 
that during his practice he had treated 6000 cases of insanity, and 
given special attention to the study of mental diseases. The witness 
stated the difference between "delusions" and "insane delusions/* 
the one being subject of correction by judgment and the senses, 
the latter not being corrcctible, and for that reason denominated 
an insane delusion. The Doctor also described illusions and hal- 
lucinations, giving illustrations from his own experience. 

He believed, judging from experience, the claim of inspiration 
frequently asserted by insane persons proceeded from a source of 
hallucination or insane delusion affecting the senses. 

Witness wjis then asked if persons acting under the claim of 
" inspiration " would indicate it in any other w ay than by their 
assertions, and replied : 

" Their actions and behavior would indicate it as well as their 
assertions. To illustrate it, a person claiming to be Jesus Christ, 
and acting under an inspiration, clothed himself like the Savior, 
gave away his property, and slept out of doors, because the Savior 
had not where to lay his head." 

AVitness was asked if such a person would feel any apprehension of 
bodily injury, or would take any precautions to guard against danger. 



760 THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

He replied : " Inspiration always overrides all fear of bodily pain 
or injury, and renders the person who believes he is acting under 
it wholly oblivious to such considerations," 

The further testimony of Dr. McDonald was very elaborate, an<l 
the examination and cross-examination occupied the attention of 
the court during the whole day. 

The thirty-fourth day. — At the beginning of the next session the 
evidence of Dr. McDonald was continued. A hard battle was 
fought with him on the question of temporary insanity, but the 
witness held stoutly to his theory and statements of the previous 
day.* His view of the case was strongly corroborated by Di'. 
Eandolph Barksdale, superintendent of the Central Lunatic Asylum 
at Richmond, and Dr. John H. CoUender, superintendent of the 
Tennessee State Asylum. These two witnesses were severely 
cross-examined, and then came a scene. It was no less than the 
removal of the prisoner to the dock. A motion to that effect, 
made by Judge Porter, was acquiesced in by Mr. Scoville, but 
opposed by Mr. Reed. The Judge's decision Avas of importance, 
as throwing light on many of the questions at issue in the trial. 
His Honor said : * 

"It is hardly necessary to ?ay that the conduct of the prisoner lias been 
in persistent violation of order and decorum. In the beginning the only 
methods which could be resorted to to suppress this disorder, were such as 
must infringe the constitutional rights of the prisoner, and tliat was a con- 
clusive argument against them. Until Saturday last no other method 
was proposed. Then this proposition (whicli I had already had in my 
mind) was submitted. It has bitlicrto been the impression, shared by the 
court and counsel, that the prisoner's conduct and language in court 
would afford the best indication of Ids mental and moral character, and 

*The Guiteau trial was notable for the miniber of ludicrous incidents and bv- 
plays in which it abounded. For instance, while Dr. McDonald was on the stand, 
the following amusing turn: 

The witness was asked if in liis practice he had not met an instance of tern 
porary insanity. lie replied: 

"Yes, sir; I know of a man who was insane for twenty-four hours." 

Scoville (eagerly) — "And then he got well?" 

"No, sir: he dkd!" 



PUT INTO THE DOCK. 7G1 

c(,iitribiite largely to the enlightcnineiit of the court iiud jury on tlio 
question of his re.<ponsibility. It wa.s therefore, on the expres.s desire of 
the District Atlornev, that the court has allowed such latitude (jf ciauUici, 
in order to furwiJi the experts an opportunity of diagnosing the prisonei's 
case. As it now appears, the opinions of experts have been largely 
founded on exhibitions which have taken place on the trial, and, it' ihey 
have contributed to enable these experts to reach their conclusions, it 
will be a complete vindication of the view of the District Attorney as 
to the proper course to be pursued. At this stage of the trial, however, 
this object seems to have been accomplished. The trial is now approach- 
ing its close. The experts have had ample opportunity to make up tlieir 
judgments and pronounce them before tiie court and jiir^y. It is incum- 
bent on the court to impose such restraint as the circumstances of the 
case admit, and which will conduce to an orderly conduct of the case. 
The prisoner has a right to hear the testimony of witnesses. He can not 
be gagged or sent out of court. Tlie proper place for a prisoner on trial 
for felonv is tlie dock. He can only come within the bar to be arraigned 
and to receive se'itence. If the court grants him the privilege of sitting 
beside his counsel, it is a privilege which can bo withdrawn summarily. 
While tlie prisoner has an undoubted right to act as his own counsel, or 
appear by counsel, he can not exercise both rights simultaneously. Hav- 
ing accepted counsel, the prisoner has waived his right to appear as such 
in person. On consideration of all the circumstances, the court thinks 
the motion will have to be granted, and that the prisoner shall be placed 
in the dock ; but I do not mean that the prisoner shall be exposed to any 
danger. He shall have the fullest protection." 

The order of the court was then carried out, and Mr. Guiteau 
was obliged to take up his feet from beside the counsellor's table 
and convey his person into the dock prepared for common pris- 
oners. 

The thirfjf-ffth day. — The day was stormy. Men would have 
excused themselves from going to the funeral of a relative on such 
a morning, and yet the court-room was packed. And for every 
person in this jammed mass of smoking curiosity, there were ten 
others outside in the corridors and on the pavements. The crowd 
had gathered in expectation of a scene in the dock, and the exhi- 
bition was equal to the expectancy. The principal sensation of 



762 THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

the forenoon was when Scovillc unJertook to introduce a letter 
which Guiteau had written some ten days previously to Senator 
Don Cameron, asking for a loan of money. This precious efifusion 
had been arrested by J. W. Guiteau and Mr. Scoville, and was now 
adduced as proof of what an insane, but no sane man would do. 
The prisoner had all the time supposed that his letter had been 
jtbrwardcd, and when he discovered that such was not the case, ho 
broke out thus: 

"Hold on; I \vant to say something about that letter. I protest 
against its being read here. It is a private letter I wrote to Senator 
Cameron ten days ago, asking liiui for a loan of ^500. It was entirely 
a private matter. I intrusted it to my brother to give to Senator Came- 
ron, and he withheld it in a miserable, mean way, and gave it to this 
man Scoville. My brother had better go back to Boston, and try and 
make some money and pay his debts. He has been a perfect nuisance on 
this case ever since he has been here. He and Scoville have dragged 
themselves into this case to make notoriety at my expense. I repndiate 
both of them. Scoville, you had better go back to Chicago; you are a 
perfect jackass on this case, and I won't have you on it any longer." 

The letter itself was as follows : 

"Sb».. Don Cameron: 

"Dear Sir: I am on trial for my life, and I need money. I am a 
Stalwart of Stalwarts, and so are you. You think a great deal of Gen- 
eral Arthur, and so do I. My inspiration made him President, and I am 
going to ask you to let me have 8500. If I get out of this I will return 
it ; if not, charge it to the Stalwarts. Yours for our cause, and very 
cordiallv, Charles Guiteau. 

"In Court, mi^hivgton, D. C, Dec. 18, 1881. 

iij> g_ — Please give your check to my brother, J. ^Y. Guiteau, of Bos- 
ton, and make it payable to my order. C. G." 

Dr. Collender held that even this impudent effusion was char- 
acteristic of a sane mind of the egotistical type, and that view of 
Guitcau's mental make-up was corroborated by additional testi- 
mony given by Dr. Kempster, who was recalled. It was at this 
epoch of the trial that the plaster cast of the prisoner's head was 
exhibited in court and criticised by the experts. 



EVIDE^•CE OF DE. GRAY. 763 

Tlie tliirty-sixth day. — One of the most important expert witnesses 
for the Government was Dr. John P. Gray, supcriutcndent of the 
New York State Lunatic Asylum. He testified that he had made 
the study of insanity his business since 1850, and in that time liad 
treated or investigated 12,000 cases of insanity. He had never 
seen a single instance where the only indication of insanity was 
an exhibition of immorality or wickedness. He did not believe 
in what had been called '' moral insanity." It was impossible to 
dissever mental unity so as to locate the impairment of the moral 
nature that was not accompanied by intellectual deterioration. 
Insanity in itself had no more tendency to excite to crime than 
neuralgia or any other disease. 

During the day's proceedings there were several preliminary 
passages between the counsel for the prosecution and the defense — 
as if to test each other's metal. For it was now seen by all that 
the trial was nearing an end, and that the time was at hand for 
the attorneys to make what they could out of the testimony before 
the jury. The estimated expense of the witness list alone had 
already reached fifty thousand dollars, and it was certainly time to 
call a halt. Nevertheless, the whole of the " surrebuttal," so called 
in the lingo of justice, was yet to come, before the pleadings proper 
could open. 

Hie thirty -seventh day. — The whole of the session, morning and 
afternoon, was occupied with the testimony of Dr. Gray. His 
evidence, continued from the previous day, extended over five 
hours, and covered nearly the whole subject of mental aberration. 
It was really a lecture on insanity. He gave at great length, and 
in full, details of what he had observed in the conduct and sayings 
of the prisoner in court, that led him (witness) to believe in his 
sanity. Referring to the prisoner's claim, that the Deity inspired 
the act, he was interrupted by Guiteau, who .called out: "Yes, 
and he will take care of it, too. Dr. Gray ; I will stake my life 
on it." 

Witness was asked: "Do you think the prisoner has been feign- 
ing in court?" and replied: 

" Yes, I do. He claims an inspiration from the Deity. I don't 



764 THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

believe that he believes any such thing, and, in such sense, he is 
feigning and acting a part." 

The sum and substance of the evidence was, that Dr. Gray did 
not find a single circumstance as narrated by the prisoner that 
would indicate to his (witness's) mind, insanity. He was of the 
opinion, judging by his examination of the prisoner in jail, and 
from his observation of him in court, that he was sane at this 
time. 

During the day the prisoner continued at frequent intervals to 
interject comments upon what the witness was saying; sometimes 
approving, sometimes denying, and anon denouncing the evidence 
as false, and the doctor as perjured. The court adjourned until 
Tuesday, the 3d of January. 

The thirty-eighth day. — The cross-examination of Dr. Gray was 
continued until recess in the afternoon. After i\\G recess he was 
asked a few more questions by Scoville, when the District Attorney 
announced the conclusion of the evidence on the part of the 
Government.* 

This sudden conclusion was a surprise to the defense. Several 
additional witnesses had been summoned by the prosecution, but 
these were not put on the stand. The matter was debated by 
Scoville, who, after some strictures, called, in surrebuttal. Dr. Bow- 
ker, of Kansas City. The witness testified that he had met Mrs. 
Dunmire at Leadville, Col., and conversed with her. She said she 
had entertained grave doubts as to the mental condition of Guiteau 
at the time she obtained her divorce, and thought at the time, per- 
haps, she would better defer divorce proceedings, and await some 
further developments in the mental condition of her husband. 

* History is written to embalm the truth. Some of the evidence of Dr. Gray was 
of such an extraordinary kind, viewed in the light of science and the authentic 
records of insanity, as to be absolutely inexplicable. The following paragrai)h 
from his testimony is given without comment: 

"Witness did not believe in what is termed by some writers 'emotional insan- 
ity,' or 'moral insanity.' 'Kleptomania' he considered simply thieving, 'dipso- 
mania' drunkenness, and 'pyromania' incendiarism. These designations were 
simply convenient terms which had been invented to cover certain crimes. 'In- 
sanity,' said the witness, 'is never transmitted any more than cancer.'" 



SUMMARY OF THE EVIDENCE. 705 

Clark IMills, the sculptor, and J. "W. Guiteau were then recalled, 
but the questions which were proposed were ruled out by the 
judge, and the court adjourned. Meanwhile, public interest had 
turned from the monotonous testimony to the pleadings which 
^s•ere now expected. 

The thirty-ninth day. — At the opening of the court on the morn- 
ing of January 4th, a strenuous effort was made by Mr. Scoville 
and INIr. Reed to secure the introduction of further testimony. An 
affidavit was prepared by the former, setting forth that much new 
evidence material to the case was now accessible; that many experts 
(whom he named) would testify to the prisoner's insanity; that 
several of the Government employes, who had had opportunity to 
observe Guiteau's movements before the assassination, and the 
treatment to which he was subjected about the Executive Mansion 
and the Department of State, would bear witness that both conduct 
and treatment were peculiar to the case of a "crank," etc. Upon 
the admissibility of this evidence, keen encounters were had between 
the opposing lawyers, and the question finally coming to Judge 
Cox for decision, was decided against Scoville's petition; and so 
with a small bit of evidence from J. J. Brooks, chief of the Treas- 
ury Secret Service, the testimony in the case of the United States 
against Charles J. Guiteau, for the murder of President Garfield, 
was at an end. Certain instructions to the jury, asked for by the 
counsel for the prosecution, were then submitted, and the court 
adjourned until Saturday, January 7th. 

The fortieth day. — The evidence was now in. It amounted to 
this: Guiteau shot the President on the 2d of July. The Presi- 
dent died from the injury on the 19th of September. The prisoner 
claimed that he was " inspired " to do the deed ; but the defense 
conducted by his counsel was, that Guiteau was insane to the point 
of irresponsibility when he fired the shot. On the question of 
insanity twenty-two experts testified. Of these, fourteen declared 
under oath that they regarded the prisoner as sane at the time 
of the trial, and also that, the hypotheses of the defense being 
granted, they considered him sane at the date of the assassination. 
Seven experts testified that they regarded the prisoner as sane at 



7G0 THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

the time of the trial, and, the hypotheses of the defense beins; 
assured as true, insane at the time of the shooting. One expert 
testified that he considered the prisoner insane both at the time 
of the trial and on July 2d. Of the non-expert witnesses who 
had been acquainted with Guiteau previously to the assassination — 
those who had been most intimate with him, including some phy- 
sicians, generally testified that they regarded him as insane, though 
many respectable witnesses were of the opposite opinion. Such 
is a summary of the evidence which was now to be discussed 
before the court and the jury. 

At the opening of the court on the morning of the fortieth day, 
the instructions asked for by the attorneys for the prosecution 
and the defense were presented and elaborately reviewed by the 
lawyers. The instructions prayed for by the counsel for the Gov- 
ernment, and supported with an elaborate argument by Mr. Davidge, 
were that the judge should instruct the jury, first, that if the 
prisoner knew at the time of the shooting the difference between 
right and wrong, he was at that time saiie, and responsible ; 
secondly, that if the prisoner possessed ability to so distinguish 
between right and wrong, no irresistible passion or impulse, no 
uncontrollable desire, no moral depravity would excuse his act; 
thirdly, that the standard of insanity must be that of the law : 
fourthly, that no delusion of ability to distinguish between right 
and wrong being present would excuse the prisoner. 

At the conclusion of Mr. Davidge's argument Colonel Reed 
addressed the court in reply, and confined his arguments to the 
consideration of two questions: First, definitions laid down in the 
Revised Statutes of murder and manslaughter, under which, if 
malice be not proved, he contended the crime would be man- 
slaughter. 

Second — The application to this case of the question of a reason- 
able doubt in connection with the plea of insanity. 

Since in a criminal cause, when instructions are asked for by 
both parties, the prosecution is entitled to the closing speech, jNIr. 
Scoville followed Mr. Reed, and before the close of the former's 
argument the court adjourned until Monday. 



SCOVILLE'S OPENING SPEECH. t6t 

The forfif-Jirst day. — As an indication of the way in Avliich the 
morning session of court was generally opened during the trial of 
the assassin the Associated Press dispatch for the morning of 
January 9th may be appropriately quoted: 

f "Wbeu Guitcau had taken his scat in the dock he glanced around 
stealthily over the audience, and immediately began a harangue, evi- 
dently intended for the jury. 

"'I have received,' he said, 'some eight hundred letters, a great 
majority of them from ladies. When I get time I shall attend to them. 
I want to send my greetings to the ladies of America, and thank them 
for their sympathy. They don't want me to be hanged. Public ojiinioii 
is fast changing. I received Saturday a check for 81,000 from Stalwarts 
of Brooklyn, and another for S500 from Stalwarts of Xew York. I want 
this jury to understand how public opinion is on this case.' 

"A bailiff here tried to silence him, when he turned upon him in a most 
vicious manner, and snarled out: 

"'You keep quiet, and mind your business. Do not interfere with 
me when I am talking. If you had any sense you would understand your 
place.' 

" Willi this opening breeze, proceedings in due form were begun, and 
Scoville resuined his argument from the point where he left off on the 
previous evening. He spoke for an hour, and his address was listened to 
with marked attention." 

He laid stress upon the propositions that insane men often know 
the difference between right and wrong, and for that reason con- 
ceal their plans. That the benefit of a doubt should attach to a 
plea of insanity when raised with the same force as when urged 
in connection with the commission of crime. His allusion to the 
decision of Judge Davis, of New Y'ork, " who recently went out 
of his way to pass upon something not involved in the case he 
was then considering," brought Judge Porter to his feet with the 
indignant reply that the charge was false. 

Scoville retorted that the opinion of a man who sat on the same 
bench with a Barnard and a Cardozo should not be received with 
much consideration. 

Judge Porter, with even more vehemence, reiterated that the 



7G8 THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

charge of counsel was absolutely false ; that Judge Davis never^sat 
on the bench with either of the gentlemen named. " If an honor- 
able member of the Federal Judiciary is to be put upon trial here, 
I demand/' said Judge Porter, " that the record be produced here 
upon which this base charge is made." 

Scovillc insisted* that when the style of proceedings best suited 
to a police court was introduced by prosecution, he should com- 
ment upon them as he deemed fitting. He should not be fright- 
ened by the tragic utterances of Judge Porter. 

There was m^uch more of the same sort of altercation as well as 
much sound argument of the points at issue. After recess Colonel 
Corkhill addressed the court, saying that he had not expected to 
speak on the legal points, relying upon the assurance of the defense 
that the question of jurisdiction would not be raised; but as the 
two prayers of the defense distinctly made that issue, he felt it his 
duty, as prosecuting officer of the Government, to address the court 
upon the question, to which he had devoted much careful con- 
sideration. He then proceeded to read from printed slips an ex- 
haustive argument upon the subject of jurisdiction. 

Colonel Corkhill was followed iDy Mr. Davidge, who discussed 
seriatim the prayers of the defense, declaring that the apparent 
object of the counsel for the prisoner had been to befog all that 
was clear in the case, in the vain hope that they might get to the 
jury with some uncertainty attached in some way in the case upon 
which to build a plea for acquittal. He also severely handled the 
eleventh and twelfth prayers of the defense, and characterized them 
as mean attempts to cast aspersions upon the experts who had testi- 
fied for the prosecution, and upon the counsel for the prosecution 
themselves. 

The foriy-Hecond day. — After the preliminaries on the morning 
of January 10th, the law points at issue in the cause were taken 
up in a spcicch by Judge Porter. The speech was very severe and 
eifective, and was addressed as much to the jury as to the court. 
The jiulge began his address witli a reference to the disorder which 
liad characterized the proceedings of the defense, and then spoke 
of Reed's arpuments as lawyer-like, and based on the onlv law 



POETER'S OPENING SPEECH. 769 

points which, "with any plausibility, could be adduced by the 
defense. Of Mr. Scoville he expressed contempt, as well as of the 
arguments which that gentlemen had adduced. He then reviewed 
the address of Mr. Davidge, pointing out the strong points in the 
reasoning. " Malice," said Judge Porter, " is the presumption of 
laAv; a question for the judge, not the jury. Should the judge 
decide, as defense desired, that malice is a question of fact for the 
jury, he would overturn the law. He would create a precedent 
in this famous case which would inevitably be condemned through 
all time to come." 

The speaker then took up authorities cited by defense, pronounc- 
ing them either misreported or bad law from obscure benches. He 
sneered at the assertion of Scoville, that the antiquated arguments 
of the prosecution could not stand in the light of those of the 
defense, which purports to be the outgrowth of an enlightened age 
— an age of Guiteaus, when a hungry politician kills a President 
from pique. 

In the conclusion of his argument. Judge Porter gave, as a pero- 
ration, "some counsel from the grave of Garfield," in the shape 
of Judge Payne's charge to the jury in 1871, in the famous Gallatin 
case, in which the "transitory mania" question was treated, and the 
letter of Garfield congratulating Judge Payne on his charge, and 
expressing the hope that, printed in pamphlet form, it might be 
placed in the hands of every judge in the land. The jury, who 
were present through the entire session of to-day, listened with the 
most careful attention to every word of the speech, which was 
nominally addressed to the court. Then followed Judge Cox's 
decision of the legal points at issue, in which he indicated in what 
manner he should charge the jury. The decision was carefully pre- 
pared, and was highly creditable to the wisdom and integrity of him 
who rendered it. Both sides accepted what the judge said as 
favorable, but it was thought that, taken all in all, the decision 
was rather in favor of the theories of the prosecution than of the 
defense. The main point of comfort for the prisoner was offered 
when Judge Cox reached the question of reasonable doubt as it 
respected the prisoner's sanity. Upon this question he said : " i 
49 



770 THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

shall not charge the jury to acquit if they find reasonable doubt as 
to any one element, but I shall take into consideration and charge 
them relative to all the elements, and that if from all circumstances 
and evidences they have a reasonable doubt of the sanity of the 
defendant at the time of the commission of the crime as charged, 
then they shall acquit." 

After some passages-at-arms between counsel relative to the 
question whether or not the prisoner should be allowed to address 
tjie jury, the court adjourned. 

The forty-third and forty-fourth days. — January 12th and 13th 
were occupied entire with the opening address to the jury by Mr. 
Davidge. As soon as the court was called to order he took a 
position in front of the jury, and opened his argument with a dis- 
claimer of any intentions to make a set speech, but expressed a 
simple desire to render the jury what aid he could in their pres- 
ent solemn duty. 

The time had now come in this trial when Ihe jury were to become 
factors. Whatever disorder or levity might have characterized the trial, 
there was but one sentiment in respect of the conduct of the jury. All 
commended their dignified deportment, and close and patient attention 
to the evidence, and he could not doubt that, as tliey had received the 
commendation of all in the past, they woidd continue to deserve it in the 
future by their decision of the question before thetn. 

"In the beginning," said Mr. Davidge, "it was sought to show that 
the prisoner was off" his balance. Now, tlie court tells you to look for 
that degree of insanity that disables a man from knowing that what he 
was doing was wrong. This is the test you are to apply. Upon the 
question of inspiration I think I will be able to show to your satisfaction 
how little there is in this claim. 

"The only question," he said, " was that of insanity." He then argued 
that the prisoner had that degree of intelHgence, legal knowledge, and 
moral sense which rendered him responsible for his acts. In a telling 
passage he showed that the prisoner himself had wit to see the fatal 
weakness of Scoville's line of defense, and repudiated it, arguing in his 
own belialf that he was no imbecile, but a sane man, whose intellect and 
will had been dominated during a sjjecified period of time, rendering him 
irresponsible for this particular crime. Ho then reviewed the circum- 



SPEECH OF DAVIDGE. '^'71 

staTic^s of tlie crime, and the victim and criminal. His analysis of 
<jriiiteau's character \\:ts graphic and effective. 

"If," he exclaimed, "'I were to sum up the moral and intellectual 
qunlities of this man, I should say that he had the daring of a vulture, 
combined with the heart of a wo'f " 

Duvidge took up in order the case of each member of the Guitemi 
family upon whose mental condition evidence had been offered by the 
defense, and recited in connection the counter-evidence of the prosecu- 
tion, summing up the force of this evidence with the remark: "But the 
vmanswerable testimony of experts settles the question of how much effett 
this collateral insanity could have upon the mental condition of the 
prisoner." 

Mr. Davidge continued: ''Tliere is not a single fact or single jot or 
tittle to show that this prisoner was not perfectly responsible for his act 
oil the 2d of July. The jury will find the defense have carefully picked 
<out and held up to view every thing in the entire career of this man 
which may be considered odd or peculiar, and it is for you to consider how 
much value can be attached to this evidence when you cotne to consider 
whether this man did not know on the 2d of July it was wrong for him 
to kill the Chief ^lagistrate of the Nation." 

The speaker next dissected the testimony of one witness afler another, 
and pointed out the weakness and unreliability of those opinions of wit- 
nesses for defense which had been based, in many instances, upon the most 
meager acquaintance. Alluding to one witness (Daniels, of Virginia) 
who had neither been asked nor had expressetl opinions as to the prison- 
er's sanity, Davidge said : " In my opinion he was their best witness, for 
I have infinitely more respect for a man who does not express an opinion 
than for those who are so ready to express one with no data upon which 
to base it." 

Mr. Davidge passed on to the examination of the prisoner himself, his 
appearance upon the stand, what he had said, and what capacity of intel- 
lect he had shown, proving, he said, conclusively that what had gone be- 
fore had all been sham and hollow fraud. Scoville had dilated upon hia 
morality, and asserted that lack of intellect was his ftiiling. On the con- 
trary, he had shown upon the stand wonderful memory, logic, reason,^ and 
intellectual ability. Likewise, as the defense had claimed for him^ virtue 
and morality, the prosecution had availed themselves of their right to 
show the contrary, and what had been the result? He had been shown 



772 THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

to be such a monster of corruption, deceit, depravity and wickedness that 
the country looked on with a shudder. 

Continuing the argument Mr. Davidge skillfully reviewed that portion 
of the testimony bearing upon the prisoner's moral character as evinced 
in his past life. " All this time," said counsel, " no one accused him of 
insanity. In the estimation of iiis friends and his family he was sane 
enough for all the transactions of life, but when his hand is red with 
blood, and the outraged law claims him as a sacrifice on the altar of 
justice, we first hear of insanity." 

• Commenting upon the testimony of Dr. Spitzka, Mr. Davidge said; 
"Notwithstanding some of his remarkable statements, S])itzka, never 
denied the prisoner's legal responsibility. Accepting all his evidence, 
even Spitzka brought the prisoner within reach of the law and punish- 
ment." . 

After recess Mr. Davidge resumed his argument with a review and dis- 
cussion of expert testimony. " Never before had so many men of eminence 
appeared upon a trial of this character. The Treasury had been opened 
to secure tlie attendance of witnesses. More than twenty experts had 
been summoned for defense, many of them men whose names were known 
iu every household. They came here ; they watched the prisoner ; they 
listened to his evidence, and what was the result? With two exceptions 
they vanished from before the light of evidence, like a cloud bef )re the 
wind, and not one of them could come upon the stand and swear this man 
was legally insane. They met and compared notes, and could not testify 
but to his sanity, with the exception of the two moral insanity men, and 
I regret to say it, neither of them would or could admit that he believed 
in a God. They vanished from before you, and were permitted by the 
defense to withdraw without testifying. Now what has been the result 
of all this evidence ? This alleged fool has grown before you to a man 
of more than ordinary intellect. We have uncovered his moral nature. 
AVe have shown him to be in religion a hypocrite, at law a pettifogger, in 
all things a swindler, a denizen of jails and a depraved and wicked wretch." 

Mr. Davidge continued: "There is not an element in this case that 
removes it from the category so carefully provided against in the Courts, 
Here was a daring, audacious boy, who in the Oneida Community gave 
way to a life of lawless vice; later, as a man, a theocrat, who would over- 
turn all law and churches; later, when he boasted himself to be of the firm 
of Jesus Christ & Co., you see the legitimate outcome of his wicked ego 



SPEECH OF MR. REED. 773 

tism. And it is just as legitimate and logical to find the true explanation 
of this crime in the same traits, inordinate vanity, desire of notoriety and 
reckless egotism. As I conceive, the true and only theory of his crime is 
this: He conceived the idea of this monstrous crime, believing others were 
as wicked as himself, and those who would be benefited by it wouM in 
some way interpose to save him from the damning consequences of his 
most heinous crime." 

Mr. Davidge then read in detail the evidence of Geneial Reynolds, 
durhig which he was continually interrupted by the prisoner, and con- 
cluded his remarks with these words: 

" I promised you, gentlemen, I would not make a set speech, and iu 
closing I shall indulge in no peroration, except to say to you that your 
countrymen and all Christendom are waiting for your verdict. I thank 
you for your attention." 

The forty-fifth day.— On the morning of January Udi, the argu- 
ment for the defense was opened by Mr. Reed in a speech which 
lasted all day. 

He commenced by paying a compliment to the jury for the seriousness, 
solemnity and care which had characterized that body during this long 
trial — a trial unparalleled in the history of criminal jurisprudence. He 
should not endeavor to make any statement of evidence, or to draw a 
gilded picture of any scene, but he would simply talk with them as 
between neighbors. Mr. Davidge, counsel for the prosecution, had occu- 
pied two days in addressing the jury, and that etibrt and the consumption 
of time on his part showed the grave apprehension felt by the prosecution 
lest something might have appeared in tlie case which would convince 
the jury that this poor man was an irresponsible lunatic. 

The speaker continued — "It does not require an expert to pronounce 
the prisoner insane. You have seen him day after day shuffling in before 
you; you have seen that strange, unnatural look of his eyes, and it 
requires the opinion of no expert to convince you that this is not the 
appearance of a sane man. 

Continuing in this strain, the speaker said: "In my opinion, if this 
poor creature is sent to the asylum, he will be a driveling idiot within six 
months." 

"These experts," said Mr. Reed, "do not swear to a fact, for none but 
the Deity can know what there is in the brain of man. They swear only 



774 THE LIFE AND TPJAL OF GUITEAU. 

to opinion, and you have a notable instance how far from facts tire 
opinions of most learned doctors may lead, in the sad case of the late 
Presitlent. We had bulleLins every day giving liis condition. We had 
an announcement that a probe had been inserted twelve inches into the 
wound, and yet the wound really led in exactly the opposite direction. I 
say it would be a shame to send a man to the gallows upon the opinion 
of doctors." 

Alluding to the strictures of counsel on the previous day, upon the 
course of certain members of Guiteau's family, in sticking to the }irisoner 
when they should cast him off as a wretch, the speaker said; " It is the 
eyidence that six years ago, IMrs. Scoville believed her brother a mental 
wreck, an insane man, and should she desert him, now that he is on trial 
for his life, she would be unworthy the name of sister." 

Referring to the difficulty experienced by defense in securing witnesses, 
Mr. Reed said : " You can never know, gentlemen, how hard it has been 
to get people to come here and tell what they know. Tliey would rather 
listen to the cry, ' crucify him,' than come here and tell what they know 
to save this poor man from the gallows and the Government from the 
disgrace of executing an insane man." 

The evidence of Brooks, the chief of the Treasury Detectives, who 
visited the prisoner in the night, and whose evidence prosecution tried so 
hard to suppress, as they did the notes of Bailey, the evidence of Detective 
McElfresh, and in short all evidence that might in any way aid the pris 
oner, Mr. Reed claimed was like a godsend in the cause of truth and justice. 

The speaker went on at some length with his argument to demonstrate 
the insanity of the prisoner. His father was, he maintained, insane on 
-religious subjects, and forced liim into "that vestibule of hell, the Oneida 
Community." Before that time he had led a pure life, and his fathei 
had convinced him that he would go to hell unless he became a member 
0.f the Oneida Community, and he went there to save his soul. 

In conclusion, Reed said: " Gentlemen of the jury, you sai<l when you 
were sworn that you woidd be governed by the evidence, and stand up to it 
without regard to tlie eh'ect it might have on you and your business, I 
adjure you to keep that oath. Falter not in the performance of the duty 
which shall save you and this fair land from eternal disgrace. I assert 
that the conviction of tliis man to the gallows, and his execution, would 
be an infamy beyond description— an indelible stain on American juris- 
prudence and American juries." ^ 

f 



SPEECH OF MR. SCOVILLE. 775 

"Think of the scene," said the spetiker, "if you condemn him to the 
gallows. Though not present in a body to see the sight, you can not but 
be there in mind. If such a day shall ever come — and I do not believe it 
ever can come under this evidence— think of this man brought out from 
his cell, with the same pale face, and same weary, wandering eyes; the 
officers of the law gathering round him, pinioning him, binding him witli 
cords, so that his muscles stand out, coveiing him with a black hood, 
shutting out the light of day from him, and leading him to the scaffold. 
Think of him, a lunatic, condennied to the gallows; a lunatic whom the 
Savior, if he were on earth, would heal. The picture is not overdrawn. 
I am very much obliged to you for your attention. I only ask you, pray 
do that which shall not in after years bring the blush of shame to your 
cheeks." 

Mr. Reed's argument was listened to with close attention and evident 
interest from the beginning to the close, and the court then adjourned, 

Tlie forty-sixth to the fftieth day. — On Monday morning, Janu- 
ary 16th, Mr. Scoville continued the argument for the defense. 
His address lasted for j^t-e days, being one of the longest ever de- 
livered. He had two thousand pages of testimony lying before 
him, and this he examined in its entirety and with great skill — 
except in the single instance of his foolish attack on the Stalwart 
leaders. The address as a whole, though not compact, was elabo- 
rate ; though not great, considered as an oration, was convincing, 
considered as an argument. The delivery was calm and unpre- 
tending. The tide was all against him, but he rowed on, buffeted 
by adverse currents, with a steady stroke and tireless persistency. 

Mr. Scoville began his address by confessing his unfamiliarity 
with the modes of practice in criminal cases. All the defense 
asked for was a fair, candid, impartial weighing of evidence by 
fair and candid men. Counsel would attempt no oratory, because 
he was not equal to it, and because he would not do it if he could. 
He would address himself simply to the reason, judgment, and 
intellect of the jury. Oratory, eloquence, and appeals to the pas- 
sions he would leave for counsel who would follow him (Judge 
Porter), and he desired to warn them that in the efforts of oppos- 
ing learned counsel to expound the law or explain evidence, he 



77G THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

would invariably seek to influence them through their emotions^ 
to touch their hearts and sway their sympathies rather than con- 
vince their judgments. 

Mr. Scoville then proceeded to name and arraign the District 
Attorney, Judge Porter, Mr, Davidgc, and five of the Government 
experts, namely, Doctors Gray, Hamilton, Kempster, McDonald, 
and Worcester, as parties to a conspiracy, the object of v.'hich was 
to hang the prisoner, whether innocent or guilty. 

In illustration, or support, of this charge, he alluded to the in- 
troduction, by Judge Porter, of a decision of Judge Davis. He 
said: "The counsel upon the other side indignantly repudiates the 
suggestion that Judge Davis sat with Cardozo or Barnard, but I 
have yet to learn if either of them ever committed a more repre- 
hensible act than that of Judge Davis." Mr. Scoville warmed 
up with the subject, and denounced in severe language the extra- 
judicial act of Judge Davis. " Had a newspaper been guilty of 
such a bold-faced attempt to influence a decision in a pending 
cause, the editor would have been subject to arrest for contempt." 

Mr. Scoville continued : " The prosecution state that if the pris- 
oner knew the act was wrong on July 2, then he should hang. 
Now this is not by any means the whole of it, or a correct statement 
of the law. The court has added in substance as follows : ' Yet, 
if in this act he was overpowered by a consciousness coming 
through his diseased mind that what he was doing was necessary 
for the good of the country, and was specially approved by God, 
then you can not convict him of murder.' " 

Mr. Scoville attacked the theory of the prosecution that it was 
the prisoner's own innate or acquired depravity that naturally led 
up to the killing of the President, and discussed at some length 
evidence introduced by them to show instances of the prisoner's 
meanness and depravity. 

" This evidence," said the speaker, " has, in almost every in- 
stance, been perverted." 

Mr. Scoville reviewed the incident of Guiteau getting English 
out of jail in New York. The prosecution laid great stress upon 
this incident as showing the rascality of prisoner, but in his (Sco- 



SPEECH OF MR. SCOVILLE. 777 

ville's) opinion Guiteau earned his money in this case, and there' 
^vas nothing whatever in the transaction to his (Gniteau's) dis- 
credit. 

At this point the prisoner tried once or twice and finally snc- 
ceeded in making himself heard. He said, in relation to this in- 
cident: "I want to say just here, that the reason I had so much 
trouble in getting English out of jail was that he was a fraud, 
and Winston and the Mutual Life were dead against him, and did 
not want him to get out of jail. I had all the money of the Mutual 
Life to work against in the sheriff's office, and I never would have 
gotten him out if I had n't hung to the case like a dog to a piece 
of meat. That's the way I do when I start on any thing." 

Mr. Scoville, continuing, denounced the witness Shaw. He be- 
lieved he had deliberately perjured himself in this cause, as also 
had the contemptible little Jew clerk, who came down here to help 
Shaw out. 

When the court was about to adjourn for the day, Guiteau called 
out from the dock: "I desire your Honor to read my speech to- 
night, so that I can discuss it with you to-morrow." 

In renewing his argument on the morning of the 17th, Mr. 
Scoville began : " Gentlemen of the jury," when Guiteau, who had 
been sitting very quietly in the dock, looking over the morning 
papers, said: "Scoville, isn't this the best time to get in that lit- 
tle statement?" Scoville said he had forgotten that little state- 
ment, but that he thought it was as good a time as any for its 
presentation. He then explained to Judge Cox that it was a state- 
ment about the speech which he had prepared and was desirous to 
read. Judge Cox said he could read it, and the assassin, who 
would have done so anyhow, thanked him, and began in a heavy 
tragic voice a somewhat stilted appeal to Judge Cox in the name 
of justice, the American judiciary, and the American people, to 
permit him to deliver his speech to the jury. Incidentally he 
took occasion to say that he was not in accord with Messrs. 
Reed and Scoville ; that his defense was not chronic insanity, but 
transitory mania, and that he based his hopes of acquittal on the 
acquittals of Sickles, McFarland, and Hiscock, on the ground of 



778 THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

'transitory mania as much as any thing else. Judge Cox said he 
would take the matter into consideration, and, with that, Guiteau 
was satisfied. 

Mr. Scoville then continued the discussion of the alleged con- 
sjiiracy entered into by the counsel for the Government and three 
or four of the experts to hang Guiteau, whether sane or insane, 
and animadverted severely upon such conduct. Colonel Corkhill 
he accused of using every means, foul and fair, to hang the pris- 
oner, despite the fact that, as District Attorney, he was an officer 
of the court, sworn to see that justice, and not injustice, was done. 
He pictured Corkhill's remorse when, at some future day, he should 
have before his imagination day and night a terrible vision — a 
writhing form hanging by the neck, with pinioned arms, and should 
hear from under the black cap enveloping the shapeless head of 
the swinging specter, " It was God's act, not mine, Corkhill," in the 
voice of a lunatic. Corkhill listened to this unexpected burst of 
eloquence with a sneer on his face, and at its close thanked Sco- 
ville ostentatiously for his graphic forecast of the future f Satire 
and sarcasm made faces at the tragedy. 

Judge Porter was next described by Mr. Scoville as a consum- 
mate tragedian, a man of high abilities and attainments, Avho pros- 
tituted himself to the prosecution for money, for the purpose of 
"hanging Guiteau. He described a curious little subterfuge by 
which, wounding Porter's vanity, he had discovered that he would 
throw as much thunder into a rebuke of an impertinent critic as 
into an ap])cal to a jury to hang a murderer. He was a good 
actor. Scoville never enjoyed dramatic exhibitions. Pie looked 
through the unreality at the reality. 

The speaker then called attention to the letter written by Gui- 
teau to the District Attorney, and from which a portion had been 
clipped, as he claimed, by the prosecution, and in a spirit of un- 
fairness. 

Immediately after recess, and before Scoville resumed his speech, 
Guiteau, with an air of apparent sincerity, announced that he was 
in luck ; that he had just signed his name to a check for $25,000 
on the First National Bank of New York: that he had received 



SPEECH OF ME. SCOVILLE. 779 

another for $5,000, and another for $750, and believed theij were 
all genuine ! 

Kenewing his argument, Mr. Scoville said: "When Charles 
Guiteau left the Oneida Community he sought out Bcecher's 
church, the Young Men's Christian Association, and the society 
of Christian people. His tendencies at this time were not immoral, 
nor had he shown any indication of that awful (with sarcasm) 
crime of not paying his board bills, for which this prosecution are 
trying to hang him." 

Mr. Scoville continued his argument up to the hour of adjourn- 
ment, giving a review of the life of the prisoner, explaining his 
acts in the light of counsel's (Scoville's) theory of the case. Guiteau 
occasionally commented, but never seriously disturbed the course 
of the argument. 

Mr. Scoville spoke of the monumental assurance of the pris- 
oner in naming himself in connection with Grant, Conkling, and 
Arthur. 

" I should say a pretty fine quartet," said the prisoner. 

Later on the speaker read from Guiteau's speech, when the pris- 
oner again called out : " You had better not read any more, Sco- 
ville; it will go dead against your fool theory!'" 

In the third day of his speech, Mr. Scoville continued his review 
of the alleged conspiracy against the prisoner. He assailed Dr. 
Gray with great vigor. He reviewed the testimony of that gen- 
tleman, and declared that it had been given with the covert in- 
tention of destroying Guiteau. Mr. Scoville dwelt at length upon 
those features of the testimony which were likely to increase the 
doubt which he thought he had created in the minds of the jury. 
He vibrated between the truisms which in the case Avero apt to 
form the basis for conclusions favorable to the prisoner. Doctors 
disagree, experts more widely and bitterly than other physicians. 
Experts do not know accurately the conditions of the brain of any 
given individual. They are sometimes mistaken in their diagnosis 
of a case. In this case they were all paid by the Government to 
swear away the life of the prisoner; and, although they all agreed 
together in advance what their statements respecting the man 



780 THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

should be, there were inconsistencies, misstatements, positive con- 
tradictions throughout their testimony. INIuch of their testimony 
was more favorable to the defense than to the prosecution. They 
had laid down rules, prescribed definitions, cited cases which alone 
■would prove the prisoner insane. So he would conclude, if there 
was so much ignorance and doubt, so much difference and dis- 
agreement on this all-important question, it was quite possible that 
the man was, after all, a lunatic, and the jury should give him the 
benefit of any doubt they might entertain on that point. 

A little further on came the sensation of the day. Mr. Scoville 
was discussing the horrors of crimes often committed by insane 
persons. He said that there w^as nothing in the act of Guiteau to 
compare in atrocity with many of the acts of insane criminals. 
He then added: 

" Gentlemen of the jury, in my opinion, if there were not reasons, and 
powerful ones, back of this prosecution, this prisoner never would have 
been brought to trial. But I tell you, gentlemen, back of this prosecution 
is an influence which I have felt, and which you may feel before this trial 
is concluded. There are politicians who seek to hide their own shame 
behind the disgrace of this poor prisoner, and make him a scapegoat for 
their crime. I did not intend, gendemen of the jury, to take up this 
feature of the case, but when I find the power and influence of this Gov- 
ernment used against me, in denying the small pittance that I have asked, 
for a fair and impartial trial, and small facilities needed for proper 
defense, I do not propose to keep quiet. I say that such men as Grant 
and Conkling and Arthur are morally and intellectually responsible for 
this crime. Mr. Conkling shall not escape, shall not shirk the respon- 
sibility of the state of things that led to this act. And he shall not escape 
the condemnation of the American people, if I can help it, for his share 
in this disgraceful scramble for office that led to a conflict with the chosen 
ruler of this great Nation, and led this poor, insane man to compass what 
they would have hailed with satisfaction, as would probably hundreds of 
other politicians, if it could occur other than through assassination — the 
removal of Garfield, who stood in the way of their unrighteous and dis- 
graceful struggle for offices. Neither shall Grant escape that condemna- 
tion to which he is so justly subjected when coming from Mexico and 
coming with undue haste to throw his own name into this petty quarrel 



SCOVILLE ATTACKS THE STALWAllTS. 781 

about a small office in the Republican party, and sought to i'umvni differ- 
ences that had sprung up. I am not guiug to see the mi^-decds ui these 
men, high in power, visited upon the^ head of this poor inf^ane luan if I 
can hel[) it. This clamor for his blood is not for the purpose of aveiiiiing 
Garfield, or of satisfying justice.* But their theory is this; if it can be 
shown that this was the act of a sane man, then those politit-ians in high 
places will say: Of course we are not responsible for the act of a sane 
man. To be sure we had some diii'erences, but then it could never have 
led a sane man to such an act. 

On the morning of the fourth day of Mr. Scoville's argument, 
the " Hon. Charles J. Guiteau," almost immediately after entering 
the dock, arose in as pompous a style as it was possible for him 
to assume and thus addressed the court : 

"Your Honor: I desire to say that the recent decision of the New 
York Court of Appeals comes with so much force at the present moment 
that I desire to call attention to it. It comes with great grace fiom the 
Empire State ; from that grand old State of the Republic ; the State that 
sends forth the brains, the money, and the commerce of the Nation. It is a 
great step forward of the law of insanity. Hitherto the law l)as Ixcn that 
the burden of proof was on the defendant, but the Court of Appeals, 
with grand magnanimity, says that the burden of proof is on tlie prose- 
cution to prove that a man not only committed the act, but also that he 
was sane at the time he committed it. In the name of justice, and in 
the name of the American people, and in the name of the American 
judiciary, I desire to thank those gentlemen of the Court of Api)cals of 
the State of New York." 

After this introduction, Mr. Scoville immediately resumed his argu- 
ment, reading from the evidence of several witnesses who were at the 

■■■■Tlii-* celebrated paragraph of Mr. Scoville's Ppcech was one of the moft foolish 
and unwarrantable tirades ever uttered. The idea that the Man of Appomattox 
and .Sen."ttor Conkling and President Arthur should be held repponsible for the 
murder of Garfield is too preposterous, too monstrous to be discussed, or even men- 
tioned. General Grant is, after Washington, tl.e least abusive and, after Lincoln, 
the most self-restrained and catholic-spirited of all the great men who by their Uvea 
and deeds have honored our country. This paragraph in Mr. Scoville's speech was 
simply scandalous, and did more to injure his otherwise able argument in the esti- 
mation of thoughtful men, than all else combined. The utterance was a^ imprudent 
as it was outrageous. 



782 THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

depot and saw the shooting and the subsequent arrest of Gulteau ; his 
object being to show that the prisoner was perfectly cahn and cool, and 
in a condition of nerves and intellect at variance with the hypothesis of 
sanity under such circumstances. 

The speaker again complained that the prosecution had fiiled after 
summoning Detective McElfresh, to call him to the stand, because his 
evidence would have been of service to the prisoner. 

A.s ^fr. Scoville proceeded, Colonel Corkhill made frequent, and, as 
the speaker evidently thought, flighting comments, until finally, becom- 
ing irritated, he turned upon the District Attorney and denounced, in 
scathing terras, his unfair conduct, and instanced his presenting as evi- 
dence in this case a letter written by the prisoner, and which he 
(Corkhill) had intercepted and mutilated by cutting off the signature and 
such portion as he thought might benefit the prisoner. "A thing," said 
Mr. Scoville, "which was never before iJermitted in a court of justice, 
not even upon the trial of a civil suit." 

Mr. Scoville alluded to the taunt of the prosecution that the experts for 
the defense had "gone back" on them, and said in explanation when he 
reac ed Washington he did not know the name of a single expert. He 
knew Guiteau was crazy, but how to show it to the country and to con- 
vince a jury of his countrymen was the burden that pressed him. Then 
came a letter from Dr. Worcester, that little man from the great State 
of Massachusetts, the State that holds the Athens of America. He wrote, 
if half what is said of Guiteau was true he was crazy; that he 
(Worcester) had great experience in treating insanity, and had written 
a book which was an accepted authority as a text-book, the first work, 
he said, by an American author upon insanity. He said further he 
wanted to do all he could to save the Nation from the disgrace of iiang- 
ing an insane man, even if his victim happened to be the President of 
the United States. "I felt," said Scoville, "a great weight lifted from 
my heart. I thought here is a great and good man who can not be 
bought. Well, gentlemen, this very little man from the great State of 
Massachusetts came and I questioned him, and this great author on 
American insanity, or this first American author, whatever it may be, 
could not on the stand, when ashed, give me the title of his oivn book!" 

Mr. Scoville severely criticised the couise of Dr. Worcester, and 
classed him with tlie Government conspirators. 

Oa the morning of January 20th, Mr. Scoville resumed his 



SCOVILLE EEVIEWS THE EXPERTS. ' Q-J 

speech with some severe animadversions on Dr, Hamilton. He 
called that gentleman " one of the conspirators/' and read from his 
testimony, and said that from the very start Dr. Hamilton had 
perverted his testimony and studiously made use of the very strong- 
est adjectives, showing that the effort on his part was designed to 
secure beyond peradventure the conviction of the prisoner. 

"In short," said Mr. Scoville, "his feelings led him to tj-an?cen(l the 
bounds of truth, and tliese expressions wtre used by him, as it appears 
to me, for the express purpose of manufacturing feeling in your minds 
against the prisoner." 

The speaker next produced a diagram showing n section of the pris- 
oner's head. 

Then taking up the diagram of Guiteau^s head, offered in evidence by 
Dr. Hamilton, Scoville said: "I profjose to show you that Dr. Kempster 
lied when he told you that this diagram was a correct representation of 
the shape of Guiteau's head. He attemj)ted to convince you that 
Guiteau had an unusually symmetrical head, and I propose to show you 
that his evidence in this respect was absolutely false." 

Mr. Scoville contended that Dr. Gray's tables of homicides by insane 
persons were prepared for this ca^^e, and did not correspond wiih tables 
for the same years in Gray's official reports. 

In reading an account of one case of homicide, the speaker said: 
"Had the District Attorney been there he would have said, ))r()bably, 
' Put him on trial for murder and hang him ; this is a case of devilish 
depravity.'" 

Mr. Scoville then went on to say that laws are framed for the punish- 
ment of sane people, not the insane. When a man has overstepped the 
boundary line of sanity and has committed a crime, he should not be 
punished as should a sane man. If you find reasonable doubt, as the 
law mercifully declares, of his sanity you shall give him the benefit of 
it. The object of human punishment is not for revenge. 

Mr. Scoville next discussed at some length the demoralizing influence 
of the scaffold, and expressed the opinion that crimes would be dimin- 
ished by the abolition of capital punishment. He then proceeded to 
anticipate the argument of Judge Porter, and to point out to the jury 
tlie fallacy of arguments which he predicted Judge Porter would advance 
to suj)port the theory of the prosecution and to secure the hanging of 
Guiteau. 



784 THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

Ill conclusinii lie said : " It lias often been said that our jury trials are 
a farce, and I have in my practice frequently lieard it said that the jury 
system ought to be abolished, because juries make a mistake, because 
they are influenced by the eloquence of advocates, because they are in- 
fluenced not by justice, not by evidence, but by the last address. But, 
gentlemen, I thank God that there was a time when my English ances- 
tors stood up against -wrong and injustice and wrested from a despot the 
right of trial by jury, and I have never yet seen the time when I would 
wish to see that right abolished. I feel more secure and more safe in 
this mode of administering justice, than in any other. So long as juries 
are honest, it does not require that you should have read Kent or 
Blackstone. It requires that you should have honest hearts and clear 
heads, and above all that you should be fearless to find for the right 
regardless of what may come, regardless of whether your fellow-men may 
approve it or not. This is what I shall expect of you, gentlemen, and 
I believe you will do it. I leave the case Avith you, gentlemen, thank- 
ing you for your kind attention." 

At the conclusion of the address, which had lasted from ]\Ionday 
morning until Friday afternoon, and during which Mr. Scoville 
had been interrupted a hundred and forty-seven times by the oppos- 
ing attorneys, Judge Cox announced his decision on the question 
of Guitcau's addressing the jury. The judge said that after con- 
sultation with his associates on the bench, it had been determined 
that the prisoner should be allowed to speak in his own behalf, and 
that that privilege was now conceded to him. It was, however, 
already two o'clock in the afternoon, and the address of Guiteau 
was postponed till the morrow. 

The jiftij-jirst day. — A scene was now expected. Guiteau was to 
address the jury. It will bo remembered, that he had on the 26th 
of December sent out from his cell what he was ])leascd to call, 
"A Christmas greeting to the American people." In the interim, 
when it was understood that Judge Cox would not permit him to 
address the jury, Guiteau gave this ])aper in a revised form to the 
representatives of the press, and by them it Avas sent out and 
printo<l in all the leading newspapers on the morning of the IGth 
of Januarv. It was now understood, that this same article would 



SPEECH OF QUITE A U. 785 

be given to the jury as his final appeal for his life. Promptly on 
Saturday morning the prisoner was ushered into court. 

He took his seat in the witness-box, remarking as lie laid out his 
papers: 

"I sit down because I can speak better, not that I am afraid of being 
shot. This shooting business is getting played out." 

At an intimation from Judge Cox, the prisoner carefully arranged his 
glasses, and -with a flourish, began to read from manuscript as follows: 

"The prosecution pretend that I am a wicked man. Mr. Scoville and 
the rest think I am a lunatic, and I presume you think I am. I cer- 
tainly was a lunatic July 2, when I fired on the President ; and the 
American people generally, and I presume you, think I was. Can you 
imagine any thing more insane than my going to that depot and shooting 
the President of the United States? You are here to say whether I was 
sane or insane at the moment I fired that shot. You have nothing to do 
with my condition before or since that shot was fired. You must say by 
your verdict, sane or insane at. the moment the shot was fired. If you 
have any doubt of my sanity at the moment, you must give me the ben- 
efit of that doubt and acquit. That is, if you have any doubt whetlier I 
fired tlie shot, or as an agent of the Deity. If I fired the shot on my 
own account I was sane. If I fired it, supposing myself an agent of the 
Deity, I was insane, and you must acquit. This is the law as given in 
the recent decision of the New York Court of Appeals. It revolutionizes 
old rules, and is a grand step forward in the law of insanity. It is 
worthy this age of railroads, electricity, and telephones, and it well comes 
from the progressive State of New York. I have no hesitation in saying 
that it is a special providence in my favor, and I ask this court and jury 
so to consider it. Some eminent people of America think me the great- 
est man of this age, and this feeling is growing. They believe in my 
inspiration, and that Providence and I have really saved the Nation 
another war. My speech, setting forth in detail my defense, was tele- 
graplied to all the leading papers, and published Monday morning, and 
now I am permitted by his Honor to deliver it to you." 

After thanking his counsel, and paying a very high compliment to the 
zeal and ability which Scoville had displayed, whom he proposed soon to 
reward with a very liberal fee, he extended his grateful acknowledgment 
to the court, the jury, officers, and bailiffs, and last, but not least, to the 
American press. The latter were a power that generallv crushed a man 
50 



<86 THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

■when tliey got down on him. Thoy had been pretty heavy on tlic pris- 
oner at first, but when tliey knew his motives, they changed their views, 
and now they were treating him very fairly. 

With this introduction, the prisoner took up a newspai)cr and pro- 
ceeded to read to the jury his published speech. His manner, to a 
casual observer, seemed to be completely self-possessed as usual, but 
behind the ostentatious affectation of composure, intense feeling, which 
was only held in control through undoubted strength of will, and excite- 
ment, were betrayed by a slight hectic spot high upon each cheek of his 
usually colorless face, and by the unusual deliberation Avith Avhich he 
began, and for some time continued to speak. Whether this excitement 
was from the merely superficial effect upon his emotions, naturally incident 
to the occasion, or whether it proceeded from a deeper and more over- 
powering influence, the true realization of his position, an almost con- 
victed murderer pleading for his life, it were difficult to divine. What- 
ever the original character of feeling, it finally gained an ascendency 
over his powers of control, and as he reached that point in his speech, 
"I have ahvays served the Lord, and whether I live or die," lie broke 
down completely, stopped, and tried to choke doAvn a rising lump in his 
throat, but found it impossible to keep back a genuine sob. Taking out 
his handkerchief, he buried his face in it a few seconds, wiped his eyes, 
and with a determined effort he started in again. He seemed to recover 
his composure so quickly, some believed the whole effort was manufact- 
ured. His sister Mrs. Scoville, however, apparently thought otherwise. 
She was deeply affected, and wept and sobbed bitterly for some minutes. 
After this incident, Guiteau continued to read, occasionally adding brief 
comments upon the text. 

As he proceeded with the reading, all appearance of nervousness grad- 
ually wore off, and with the utmost composure, and an unction that 
bordered on the ludicrous, the prisoner read on with an attempt at every 
conceivable form of oratorical, rhetorical, and dramatic ornamentation. 
His description of the taking off of the President, was given with striking 
effect. At times he closed his eyes or turned them heavenward; waved 
his body back and forth ; lowered his voice to a whisper, or raised it to a 
high treble. At times the intensity of his utterances seemed to react 
upon himself, but the eflTcct was but transitory, and with the exception 
of one instance, there was no indication of breaking down. At frequent 
intervals he paused to emphasize some sentence or sentiment by rej)eating 
it, or commenting upon it. At one time, pausing, he leaned towards the 



JUDGE PORTER BEGINS. 787 

jury, and emphasizing with his head and hands, said, with an attempt at 
great solemnity of utterance: "I tell you, gentlemen, just as sure as 
there is a God in Heaven, if you harm a hair of my head, this Nation 
Avill go down in blood. You can put my body in the grave, but there 
will be a day of reckoning." 

In the most naturable manner imaginable, Guiteau explained again 
that the reason he did not take Garfield away two weeks before he did, 
was because he had no authority to remove Mrs. Garfield. "When the 
time did come," he said in an airy tone, "I removed him gently and 
gracefully." 

"The jury may put my body in the ground, but my soul will go 
marching on. The slaveholders put John Brown's body in the ground, 
but his soul goes marching on." 

Here he chanted most weirdly one stanza of "John Brown's body," 
closing with "Glory! glor}^! Hallelujah!" twice repeated. 

Guiteau concluded his address at 11 : 25, A M., and, upon announcement 
by Corkhill that Judge Porter would be unable to speak that afternoon, 
the court adjourned until Monday. 

Tfic ffty-sccond day to the fifty-fourth day. — Expectation was on 
tiptoe respecting the speech of Judge Porter. The judge had a large 
reputation as an eifective speaker, especially in criminal causes, 
Avhere his powers of denvinciation and invective would stand him 
in hand. On Monday morning, January 23d, the distinguished 
advocate, who was to close the argument for the Government, began 
his address. In beginning. Judge Porter said : 

"If it please your Honor and gentlemen of the jury, in my own in- 
firmity (for I share your fatigue) I proceed as best I can to discharge my 
duty. The nature of this duty is such that I should feel that I were 
almost accessory after the fact if I should fail to speak such words as I 
can to aid you in reaching a proper conclusion. Thus far the trial has 
been practically conducted by the prisoner and Scoville. Every one has 
been denounced at their will, and even now I am imformed I will be 
interrupted by them both." 

Judge Porter briefly recited the scenes of disorder, the abuse and 
slandev to which everyone upon the case had for two months been sub- 
jected, "and yet," he said, "of the three speeches which have been made 
by the defense, I will do the prisoner the justice to say that bis was the 
least objectionable." 



788 THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

Judge Porter then turned his attention to the prisoner, and preceded to 
depict his character us that of a beggar, a hypocrite, a robber, and a 
swindler; a lawyer who never won a cause. No court, no jury, failed 
to see in him a dishonest rogue, and such men can not win causes. He 
has left his trail of infamy in a hundred directions. The man who, as a 
lawyer, had such notions of morality that when he had talcen debts to 
collect, and collected them by dogging the debtor, he held them against 
his client ; a man who was capable of blasting the name of a woman 
v/hom he still recoguized as his wife ; a man who, when he tired of this 
woman, pretending to be a Christian and believer of the Bible, went out 
and deliberately committed adultery ; a man who pushed himself into the 
fellowship of Christian associations as a follower of the Savior, when fresli 
from six years in the Oneida Community. 

" Public justice demauded that that the assassin should never leave 
the dock save in the shackles of a sentenced felon. He who spared no 
one should not be spared. He spared not the good Garfield; he spared 
not the loving wife, who had once saved her husband's life. He spared 
not the little mother upon whose lips had rested on the 4th of March last 
the kissing lips which had just before rested on the Book of God." 

Passing in review the principal events of the prisoner's life, Judge 
Porter showed up, in its hideous deformity, the bent of his nature. 
Alluding to his dispute with his brother, John W. Guiteau, in Boston, 
when he struck the latter in the face, Judge Porter said: "This was the 
first and last time this coward ever struck any blow in the face. His 
coward hand always struck from behind. '^ 

After showing who and what was the murderer. Judge Porter next 
described his victim, paying a glowing tribute to the character and ser- 
vices of the lamented President, and pronouncing a most touching eulogy, 
as it were, upon his memory. The claims of tlie prisoner, to be a })raying 
man, were considered, and the hollow mockery of the claim shown. 

" Tiie prisoner says he prayed for six weeks. Why, if he had made 
up his mind unalterably to murder the President on the 1st of June," 
eaid Judge Porter, "did he still continue to pray, down to the very act, 
of the murder? -What was he praying for? The man who claimed to 
have received Divine inspiration himself prepares his defense in advance 
for an act to do which he was divinely inspired. The believer in inspi- 
ration, he would himself alter the inspired hook, and substitute for it a 
book of his own. That he did not shoot the President on the first occa^ 



SPEECH OF JUDGE PORTER. 789 

./ion," said Judge Porter, ''was due to his coward heart. Had he done 
it on that occasion he would have been torn to pieces, and he knew it. 
On this occasion the President was surrounded by his Cabinet and his 
friends. 

"It was night," said the speaker, in describing how Guiteau tracke<l 
the President, " dark as the night when the devil first whispered this 
crime in the assassin's ear. He lay hiding in the alley. Why? With 
the inspired command of God resting upon him to kill the President, and 
with a pressure that would have made him do it if he died the next 
minute at any time after June 1st, why did he not kill him? Because, 
he says, it was too hot, and he thought he would do it some other time!" 

In reply to the broadcast imputation put upon Government witnesses 
that they were offered special inducements by Colonel Corkhill to come 
here and testify. Judge Porter said: "Not one dollar can Colonel Cork- 
hill draw from the Treasury except upon proper vouchers certifietl accord- 
ing to law, and not a single witness has received one dollar more than the 
bare allowance provided by law." 

Judge" Porter repelled the assumption of counsel for the defense that 
tliere was a man upon the jury who would hang the jury. The prisoner 
himself had indicated that he rested his safety ui)on one man. 

The arguments of defense for the past seven daj-^s had all been directed 
to this one object, to divide the jury. Judge Porter addressed himself 
upon this subject Avith great force of argument and eloquence directly to 
the intelligence and conscience of the jury. They must not believe, if 
any man of them thought to discharge his duty by avoiding a full duty, 
and should cause a divided jury, that the United States Government 
would any the less press the trial to a conviction. 

"Who was it that was practicing with a pistol — the Deity, or the 
prisoner at the bar? Who fired at those osiers? Who sent them swerv- 
ing down, as Garfield swerved? Who hit them? Who fired twenty 
times in order to accustom himself to the noise of the report of his pistol, 
to the end it should not stun him when he murdered the Piesident? " 

A.s to his being restrained from murder by the presence of Mrs. Garfield, 
on one occasion, and that of two boys on another occasion. Judge Porter 
remarked there Avas no diabolism so complete on this side of the infernal 
regions tliat it has not some remaining twinges of conscience, and yet he 
firmly believed that this statement of the prisoner's was as false as nny- 
thing else he had said. He had been restrained by nothing but cowardice 



rnO THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

on :ill such occasions. He knew that if he had murdered the President 
in his wife's presence, no mihtary force could have prevented the peoi)Ie 
who were around, tearing him limb from limb, and upon the occasion 
\vh(!n children were present, they had come, surrounded by their friends 
an;i domestics. 

Judge Porter also referred to the spirit of vanity which made the ])ris- 
• :; T choose a white-handled pistol rather than a black one, that it might 
bi ;ir his name and fame " thundering down the ages," and be more con- 
spicuous in the Patent-office. He rehearsed the scene at the railroad 
depot, and said that after Guiteau fired the bullet, he turned to run. 
Run where? Run to jail. He was careful in the very last moment of 
his own safety. 

" If there should be a division of opinion among the jury it would be 
very unfortunate ; imfortunate for any interest that I can conceive of as 
an honest man. How would the ease stand if there were such a division 
of the jury? It would stand thus: There is a man who swears he is 
guilty, and here is a juror who says : I will swear that he is not." The 
prisoner calls it assassination over bis own signature, and the juror says 
it is no assassination. Oath to oath opposed. Prisoner: "Guilty." Juror: 
" Not guilty." Prisoner:—" Sane." Juror : — " Insane." 

" The only consequence of that disacrreenient, gentlemen, would be (under 
the charge which the Judge will deliver to you) to call the attention, not 
only of this country, but of mankind, to the only human being who is ready 
to stand by and shield the cowardly assassin of the President of the United 
States. But what would he accomplisli by it? Is it supposed Govern- 
ment is not strong enough to press the case to a conclusion? It would 
defeat the purpose of this particular trial, and it would compel another 
twelve jurors to be prisoners in their turn, as you have been in yours, to 
be held away from their families and business, as you have been held 
away from yours, and to have so much cut out of their lives, as lias been 
cut out of yours, and all this when the prisoner swears he is guilty. 

I am dealing with testimony, and I shall demonsti-ate it, clause by 
clause. I will demonstrate that unless this prisoner is a liar unworthy 
of belief, he is guilty. 

Judge Porter adverted to the constant interruptions of the prisoner, 
his false claims of sympathy and that the press was with him, and said 
in contradiction, " I have yet to see a single American uewspai)er that 
has one word to say in his defense." 



SPEECH OF JUDGE PORTER 



791 



Judge Porter ridiculing the proposition that others, and not Giiiteau, 
were responsible for the crime, said with bitter irony: "His father is 
responsible; that father whom he struck when eighteen years old— he 
killed President Garfield ; that father whom he says he can never forgive, 
and with whom he had not, for the last Hfteen years of his honored life, 
exchanged a word. Who else is responsible ? Wliy, the mother ; the 
mother whom he scarcely even remembers ; who was guilty of the mon- 
strosity of having an attack of erysipelas, so as to necessitate the cutting 
off of iier hair some weeks before his birth, and who, for this reason, it is 
asserted, transmitted congenital insanity to this murderer. Who else is 
responsilile? Why, Uncle Abram, who was drunken and dissolute, but 
not insane; he transmitted insanity to him, although he did not become 
insane until after he (prisoner) was born ; he killed Garfield by making 
the prisoner insane. Who else is responsible ? Why, Uncle Francis killed 
Garfield— uncle Francis who, as we are told, being disappointed in love, 
either killed the husband of the woman he loved or fought a sham duel, 
and long after became demented; he killed Garfield by making this 
man a congenital monstrosity, as Dr. Spitzka says. Then cousin Abby— 
she is responsible— who unfortunately was taken possession of by one of 
the Guiteau tribe, a traveling mesmerist, and her young mind so wrought 
upon that finally she was, for better protection, sent to an insane asylum ; 
she killed Garfield by making this m urderer insane. And as if all this were 
not enough to kill President Garfield, the Chicago convention killed him. 
'If they hadn't nominated him I should not have killed him,' says the 
prisoner. The doctors killed him, for if he had not been chosen Presi- 
dent he would not have been killed. ' His nomination was the act of 
God. His election was the act of God,' says the prisoner, and he would 
have us believe the Deity who had thus twice confirmed His choice 
found it necesssary to correct His labors by appointing this wretched 
swindler, this hypocrite, this syphilitic monstrosity to murder the Presi- 
dent whose nomination and election He had confirmed. These are the 
defenses put forward by this prisoner and his trained counsel to divert 
your attention from the fact that the deliberate murderer of Garfield 
sits before you. 

" I might," said Judge Porter, "detain you a week, but I am here for 
the purposeof ascertaining whether this man is guilty, and these collateral 
issues I will not delay upon. The junior counsel," said Judge Porter, 
" has told you you are kings, Implying that you may override the law 



792 THE LIFE AKD TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

and the evidence in grasping an almost intangible donbt, and ignoring the 
solid structure of the evidence of guilt. You are not kings, and the man 
Avho told you so is the junior counsel — the only man in lifty millions who 
"would or could recouiinend Guiteau for office. 

" This man," continued the speaker, "slaughtered Garfield as he would 
have slaughtered a calf that he wanted to eat, and, having disposed of 
him in that way, in comes his counsel and charges with crime those who 
occupy too lofty a position to notice the vi|)ers that said it, and who would 
have disgraced the dignity of their office by noticing it. One of them if. 
a distinguished American Senator who, at this moment, except that he 
was too proud and too lofty to accept the office, would be sitting as Chief 
Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, son of the great and 
honored American jurist, a man who, still young in yeai-s, has commanded 
more of attention, at home and abroad, of admirers of intellectual great- 
ness, of loftiest eloquence, and of greatest statesmanship than any other 
man perhaps even of his time; a bitter partisan, a man honest in all he 
undertakes, a man faithful to his friends, faithful to his convictions, even 
though they involve sacrifice ; a man who was cajxible of doing what but 
few men are, resigning the leadership of the American Senate, and to do 
it at the peril of his own political destruction; a man of unstained integ- 
rity, of courage and fearlessness, and a manliness whicli made this with- 
drawal a matter of regret even to his political adversaries;— such a man 
is, to-day, arraigned before an American jury, and arraigned, not by a 
criminal, but by a criminal's defender (" Without my knowledge," inter- 
posed the prisoner), as responsible for the murder of Garfield. Another 
of those so arraigned is a man more honored in the Southern States 
than any American, save their own cherished leader, General Ijec ; a man 
who is honored in the Northern States for services rendered, first in war 
and afterwards in reconciling the difficulties which grew out of the 
Avar; a man whose life has been without dishonor and without reproach ; 
a man elevated to conspicuous positions, successor of Washington and 
Jefferson, Jackson and Lincoln ; one who, after he left that place, was 
welcomed in every European and Oriental land ns one of the ablest men 
and purest personal characters to be named in the history of the nine- 
teenth century ; — this man is arraigned by the lawyer of Guiteau (" But 
not by Guiteau," interrupted tlie prisoner) as responsible f()r the murder 
of General Garfield. More than that, we have a President of the United 
States — the successor of Garfield and Hayes and Lincoln and Jackson 



SPEECH OF JUDGE PORTER. 703 

and Jefferson and Adams and Washington, elevated to that position, not 
bv the assassin, but by the voice of his countryme-.i. And wlien tlii.s 
creature says, ' I made Arthur President,' he forgets tluit General Arthur 
-was made President by the voice of his countrymen, by that very voice 
^vhich made Garfield President. He was made President under the Con- 
stitution and laws. Millard Fillmore was just as truly elected by the 
people as the president whom he succeeded. 

"Mr. Reed, as counsel for the prisoner, has chosen to pose here as a 
friend of Garfield. I take it for granted that he has read those memora- 
ble sayings of President Garfield, simple as childhood, guileless, frank, 
sincere; his dying utterances between Guiteau's bullet and Garfield's 
death. In one of his waking hours, ou the 11th of July, the President 
asked Mrs. Edson where Guiteau was. This was while he expected to 
recover. He then remarked he supposed the people would come to him 
some day with a petition to pardon the man, and he wondered what he 
should do in the personal matter of life and death. Mrs. Edson told him 
she should think he would do nothing at all; that he surely could not 
pardon such a man, and the President said : ' No, I do not suppose I 
can.' And vet Mr. Charles Reed, to whom the American Bar is indebted 
for introduction to its ranks of the prisoner Guiteau, undertook to say 
the President regarded him as an irresponsible man." 

Summing up the questions presented by the case upon which they were 
soon to be called upon to pass, Judge Porter said: "The first of the 
questions for you to consider is, Was tlie prisoner insane on the 2d of 
July? If he was not, the case is at an end, and your sworn duty is 
ended. 

" Second— If you find that he was insane on that day, Avas he in- 
sane to that degree that on the 2d of July he did not know that murder 
was morally and legally wrong? If he was not insane to that degree, 
you are bound under your oaths to convict him. 

" Third — If, in utter disregard of his confessions, under oath, you shall 
find that he actually and honestly believed that God had commanded him 
to kill President Garfield, and that he was under a delusion — unless you 
find further the flict that such delusion disabled him from knowing such 
act was morally and legally wrong — you are bound under your oaths to 
convict him. 

"Fourth — If you find such delusion did not exist, that God com- 
manded him to do the act, and that such delusion was the sole product ot 



794 THE LIFE AND TRIx\.L OF GUITEAU. 

insanity, then, and then only, you can acquit him, when you find he was 
unable to control his own will ; and you must remember that under oath 
he has sworn he was able to control it, for he said, ' Had Mrs. Garfield 
been with him at the depot on the 2d of July, I would not have sliot him,' 

" Fifth — If you find that, even though he was partially insane, it re- 
.sulted from hi^ own malignity, his own depravity, yet still you are bound 
under instruction of the Court to convict him. 

" Sixth — If upon the whole case you have no reasonable doubt whether 
he was partially or wholly insane, if you believe that he knew his act was 
legally and morally wrong, you aie, under your oath, bound to convict 
him. The law," said Judge Porter, " is founded upon reason, and it must 
not be said that an American jury shall override law and establish a 
principle which will let murder and rape and arson run riot thi-ough the 
land." 

Mr. Porter then went on to discuss the points of law as laid down by 
Judge Cox in this case. After he had disposed of that question, he took 
up again the question of responsibility of the prisoner. " What house, 
hold," he said, " Avould be safe, what church would protect its wor- 
shipers, if this man were to escape on the plea of irresponsibility? Is it 
true, any man who has had an insane cousin,- insane uncle, insane aunt, 
or insane ancestor, and who is not himself insane, but knows perfectly 
well murder is legally and morally wrong, is to escape punishment? INIay 
he stab, or shoot, or waylay, or murder in any form, by day, or by night, 
and then claim, in his vindication, not that he is insane himself, but that 
somebody was? If so, what is human life worth? 

"The principal claim by prisoner and his counsel is the atrocity of 
this particular act. I do not deny his claim of being the most cold- 
blooded and savage murderer of the last six thousand years. But he is 
not alone, as he will find when he comes to those realms where murderers 
are consigned. Murder has existed in all ages. Four thousand years 
ago there was inscribed on tables of stone the command to all peoi)le, 
'Thou shalt not kill.' But Guiteau says that life is of small considera- 
tion. He says in one of his letters of consolation to the widoAV : ' Life 
is but a fleeting dream. His death might have happened at any time.' 
But the Lawgiver of the universe entertained different views on the value 
of human life when he said : 'Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall 
his blood be shed.'" 

iSIr. Porter went on to refer to the prisoner's life in Washington, and 



SPEECH OF JUDGE PORTER. 705 

asked, "Was this temporary mauia, Abrahamic mania, or disease of the 
brain, which resulted in murder for the benefit of Stalwarts of the Ke- 
publican party? 

" Gentlemen: If I went no farther, do you believe that this man's brain 
was diseased? I deal with nothing else now — was his brain diseased? 
And did the disease come and go, according to whether President Gar- 
field went out alone, or went out with his wife, or went out witli his 
children, or went to the Soldiers' Home, or went to the railroad depot? 
Do you believe that the right remedy for a disease of the brain is to 
make six weeks' preparation for assassination, and that the shooting of 
another man through the spine is a cure for the disease? That is the 
case, as the prisoner makes it out." 

On the morning of the 2.5th, Judge Porter resumed his argument. 
Admonished by the falling snow and severity of the weather, from which 
he had sufiered, and from which, doubtless, the jury also had suffered, 
he felt it necessary to vary somewhat from his original intentions, and 
trust to the intelligence and honor of the jury to supply his defects. He 
would not, therefore, linger over the dry details of the evidence. Feel- 
ing it imperatively necessary that this case should be brought to a con- 
clusion as soon as possible, fie would simj^ly touch upon a few salient 
points of the evidence. 

"John W. Guiteau," said Judge Porter, "I believe to he an honest 
man. He came here ready to contribute his means, his evidence, and 
his services to save a brother's life and honored father's name ; and yet 
truth comes from his lips which must impress upon every one of you the 
conviction that on the 2d of July this prisoner was as sane as you or I, 
or the judge upon this bench." 

Proceeding, Judge Porter contrasted the life and conduct, and deceitful, 
swindling practices of the prisoner with the Apostle Paul's, in the light 
of the prisoner's assumption that he, like Paul, was honestly engaged in 
dt)ing. the Lord's work, Paul never palmed off" brass watches for gold. 

Continuing to read from the evidence. Judge Porter was again and 
again interrupted by the prisoner, who called out: "Read the record. 
That's bigger than my brother. He's no brother to me, and never hcs 
been till he came to this trial. It is contemptible in you to speak about 
my brother in the way you do." 

After this outburst. Judge Porter continued to speak for some minutes 
v/ithout further interruption. 



796 THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

Alluding to the incident of the watch, Judge Porter arraigned both 
prisoner and counsel for. their contemptuous manner of speaking of the 
witness, Edwards, as a "miserable Jew." 

"I have yet to know," said the speaker, " that any man lives who could 
have cause to feel ashamed that he sprang from the same race as tlie 
Savior i.f mankind," 

i'-jcsAivr on to a criticism of Dr. Spitzka's testimony, Mr. Porter said : 
'•I wonder whether, if Lucifer happened to be on trial. Dr. Spitzka would 
say of hirj, 'He \?as a moral imbecile, a moral monstrosity.' When 
Satan fell, if we may believe the Book of inspiration, he lell from where? 
From empyrean heights, and he sank into depths from which come those 
temptations that lead men to crime, and doom them to punishment here 
and hereafter. But there was a change in Satan. Dr. Spitzka thinks 
there never was a change in this man. He was a moral imbecile — that 
is, wicked from the beginning." 

Commenting on Reed's allusion to Charlotte Corday, Porter said : " The 
world had lived, since the year of the French Revolution, in ignorance 
of u i fact, that the beautiful Charlotte Corday was insane. It was left 
to Reed to announce that fact. Siie can not turn in her grave to belie 
it, but there are some of us who know something of the history of that 
wonderful w^^nan's true patriotism, which led to an assassination that was 
justified, if ever as3assination was justified." 

The prisoner.— You would have hung her if you had been theie. 
Mr. Porter.— She was no sneaking coward. She left the house in 
wdiich she was reared to deliver France; to stay the hand of revolution- 
ary .slaughter; to lay her own head underneath the guillotine to save 
France's blood. She believed it to be her duty to the France she loved, and 
she made her way with deliberate preparation, sane in mind and devoted 
in purpose, ready to die that others might live. And she, succeeding in 
findiug her way to the man who held in his right hand the lives of millions 
of Frenchmen, and wlio, by jotting a mark of blood opposite a name, 
could hurry men into the dismal dark dungeon, from which there was 
no escape except through the guillotine, she devoted herself to her work, 
not after providing for her own safety, not with the idea of securing 
rewards from others. 

Passing T)n to the expert testimony, Mr. Porter said: " Every one of the 
thirteen experts has sworn, on personal examination, that the prisoner 
never was insane, and three of them were witnesses who had come under 
subpoenas from the defense, believing from public rumor, he was insane." 



CHARGE OF JUDGE COX. 797 

Prisoner. — They all said I was insane on the 2(1 of July, until they saw 
Corkhiil, and they changed their minds. 

Mr. Porter. — They examined him, came to the conclusion that lie was 
.sane, and notified counsel for the defense that they should so sv/ear. 
Thiee of them remained. Those men were subpoenaed on both eide.", 
themselves foremost men in their specialty, and .'^elected because tl:ey 
were men of European reputation. All swore tliere was no disease of the 
brain in this man, no insanity, but that he was as sane as any of i;s. 

Pressing the assertion that Guiteau was actuated by revenge and a 
desire for notoriety. Judge Porter compared him to a noted criminal in 
Europe. "I don't recall his name," said Judge Porter, "but he said: 
'I am the ugliest man in Europe.'" — ("Well, you wasn't there," inter- 
rupted Guiteau. "You'll be the Tigliest man in history though.'^) "I 
would rather be the ugliest man in Europe, and have notoriet}', than re- 
main in the ranks of mediocrity." 

Mr. Porter, much wearied by his long effort, closed his able and exhaust- 
ive argument as follows: 

"Gentlemen, the time has come Avhcn I must close. The Government 
has presented its case before you, and we have endeavored to disfharge 
our duty to the best of our ability. His Honor has endeavored to dis- 
charge his. I know^ you Avill be faithful to your oaths, and di^-charge 
vours; so discharge it, that by your action, at least, political a&-sassina- 
tion shall find no sanction to make it a precedent hereafter. He who 
has ordained that human life shall be shielded by human law from hiunan 
crime, presides over your deliberations, and the verdict which shall be 
given or withheld to-day, will be recorded where we all have to appear. 
I trust that the verdict will be prompt, that it will represent the majesty 
of the law, your integrity, and the honor of the country; and that this 
trial, which has so deeply interested all nations of the earth, may result 
in a warning, reaching all lands, that political murder shall not be used as 
a means of promoting party ends, or political revolutions. I trust also 
the time shall come, in consequence of the attention that shall be called 
to considerations growing out of this trial, when by international arrange- 
ment between various Governments, law shall be so strengthened, that 
political assassins shall find no refuge on the face of the earth.' 

CHARGE TO THE JURY. 

Judge Cox, at 3:15 P. M., proceeded to deliver his charge to the jury. 
He commenced by saying: "TheConstitutionprovides that in all crimijuil 



798 THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

prosocutions, the accused shall enjoy the right of a speedy and public trial, 
by an impartial jury in the State or District where the crime shall have 
been committed; that he shall be informed of the cause and nature of the 
accusation against him; that he shall be confronted with the Avitnesses 
against him; that he shall have compulsory process to obtain witnesses 
in his favor, and that he shall have assistance of counsel in his defense. 
These provisions nere inteaded for the protection of the innocent from 
injustice and oppression, and it was only by their faithful observance that 
guilt or innocence could be fairly asci'rtained. Every accused person was 
presumed to be innocent until the accusation was proved. With what 
difficulty and trouble the law had been administered in the present case 
the jurors had been daily witnesses. It was, however, a consolation to 
think that not one of those sacred guaranties of the Constitution had been 
violated in the person of the accused. At last the long chapter of proof 
was ended. ' The task of the advocate was done,' and it now rested with 
the jury to determine the issue between public justice and the prisoner at 
the bar. No one could feel more keenly than himself the great respon- 
sibility of his duties, and he felt he could only discharge them by close 
adherence to law laid down by its highest authorities. Before proceeding 
further he wished to notice an incident which had taken place pending 
the i-ecent argument. The prisoner had frequently taken occasion to 
proclaim that public opinion, as Avas evident by the press and correspond- 
ence, was in his favor. Those declarations could not be prevented, ex- 
cept by the process of gngging the prisoner. Any suggestion that the 
jury could be influenced by such lawless chattering of the prisoner would 
have seemed to him absurd; and he should have felt he was insulting 
the intelligence of the jury if he had warned them not to regard it. 
Counsel for prosecution had felt it necessary, however, in the final argu- 
ment, to interpose a contradiction to such statements, and exceptions had 
been taken on the part of {he accused to the form in which that effort 
was made. For the sole purpose of purging the record of any objection- 
able matter, he should simply say anytiiing which had been said on either 
side in reference to public excitement or to newspaper opinions, was not 
to be regarded by the jury. The indictment charged the defendant with 
having murdered James A. Garfield, and it was the duty of the court 
to explain the nature of the crime charged. When murder was com- 
mitted, where a person of sound metiiory and discn-etion unlawfully killed 
a reasonable being, in the peace of the United States, with malice afore- 



CIIAKGE OF JUDGE COX. 799 

thought, it had to be proved, first — that death was caused by the act of 
the accused, and furtlier, it was caused with malice aforethought. That 
did not mean, however, the Government had to prove any ill-will or 
hatred on the part of the accused toward the deceased. Wherever homi- 
cide was shown to have been committed without lawful authority and 
with deliberate intent, it was sufficiently proved to have been done with 
malice aforethought, and malice was not disproved by showing the 
accused had no personal ill-will towards the deceased, and that he killed 
him from other motives, as, for instance, robbery, or through mistaking 
him for another, or (as claimed in this ca^e) to produce public benefit. 
If it could be shown the killing occurred in the heat of passion, or under 
provocation, then it Avould appear there was no premeditated attempt, 
and, therefore, no malice aforethought, and that would reduce the crime 
to manslaughter. It was hardly necessary, however, to say there was 
nothing of that kind in the present case. The jury would have to say 
either defendant was guilty of murder, or he was innocent. In order to 
constitute the crime of murder, the assassin must have a reasonably sane 
mind. In technical terms, he must be 'of sound mind, memory, and 
discretion.' An irresponsibly insane man could not commit murder. 
If he was Laboring under disease of the mental faculties to such an extent' 
that he did not know what he was doing, or know it was wrong, then he 
was wanting in that sound mind, memory, and discretion. That was a part 
of the definition of murder. In the next place, every defendant was pre- 
sumed innocent until the accusation against him was established by proof. 
In the next place, notwithstanding this presumption of innocence, it was 
equally true that the defendant was presumed to be sane, and to have 
been so at the time the crime was committed ; that is to say, the Gov- 
ernment was not bound to show affirmatively, as j)art of its proof, 
defendant was sane, as insanity was the exception, and as a majority of 
men are sane. The law presumed the latter condition of every man 
until some leason was shoAvn to believe to the contrary. The burden was, 
therefore, on the defendant, who set up insanity as an excuse for the 
crime, to produce proofs, in the first instance, to show that the presump- 
tion Avas mistaken, so far as it related to the prisoner. 

"The crime, therefore, involved three elements: the killing, malice, 
and responsible mind in the murderer. After all the evidence was 
before the jury, if the jury, while bearing in mind both these pre- 
sumptions — that is, that the defendant is innocent till he is proved 



800 THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

guilty, and that he is sane till the contrary appears— still entertained 
what is called a reasonable doubt on any ground, or as to any of the 
essential elements of the crime, then the defendant was entitled to the 
benefit of that doubt, and to acquittal. It was important to explain to 
the jury here in the best way that the court could, what is a reasonable 
doubt. He could hardly venture to give an exact definition of the term, 
for he did not know of any successful attempt to do so. As to the ques- 
tions relating to human affairs, knowledge of which is derived from testi- 
mony, it was impossible to have the same moral certainty that is created 
by scientific demonstration ; the only certainty that the jury could have 
was the moral cei-tainty depending upon the confidence which the jury 
had in the integrity of witnesses and their capacity and opportunity 
to know the truth. If, for example, facts not improbable in themselves, 
were attested by numerous witnesses, credible and uncontradicted, and 
who had every opportunity to know the truth, a reasonable or moral cer- 
tainty would be inspired by that testimony. In such case doubt would 
be unreasonable, or imaginary, or speculative. It ought not to be doubt 
as to wdiether the party might not be innocent, in the face of the strong 
proofs of his guilt, but it must be a sincere doubt whether he had been 
proved guilty, even where testimony was contradictory, and where as 
much credit should be given to one side as the other, the same result 
might be produced. On the other hand, opposing proofs might be so 
balanced tliat the jury might justly doubt on which side, under all the 
circumstances, the truth lay, and in such case the accused party was 
entitled to the benefit of the doubt. All that the jury could be expected 
to do was to be reasonably and morally certain of the facts which they 
declared to be their verdict. In illustrating this point, Judge Cox quoted 
the charge of Chief Justice Shaw, of Massachusetts, in the case of the Com- 
monwealth vs. Webster. With reference to evidence in this case, very 
little comment w:is required by the court, except upon one question, the 
others being hardly matters of dispute. That defendant fired the shot and 
shot the deceased President, was abundantly proved. That the wound was 
fatal had been testified to by surgeons who were competent to speak, and 
they were uncontradicted ; that the homicide was committed with malice 
aforethought (if defendant were capable of criminal intent or malice) 
could hardly be gainsaid. It Avas not necessary to prove that any special 
or express hatred or malice was entertained by the accused toward the 
deceased. They would find little difficulty in reaching a conclusion as to 
all the elements that made up the crime charged in the indictment, 



CHARGE OF JUDGE COX. 801 

except it might be as to the one of sound mind, memory, and discretion. 
But that was only a technical expression for a responsible, sane man. He 
now api)roiiched that difficult question. He had already said a iiian who 
is insane in the sense that makes him irresponsible, can not commit a 
crime. The defense of insanity had been so abused as to be brought into 
great discredit. It was a last resort in cases of unquesti(mable guilt. It 
had been an excuse for juries to bring in a verdict of acquittal when there 
was public sympathy for the accused, and especially where there w-as 
provocation for homicide accorduig to public sentiment, but not according 
to law. For that reason the defense of insanity was — it was sufficient to 
prove the act was done by deliberate intent, as distinct from an act done 
under certain impulse, in the heat of blood, and with previous malice. 
Evidence has been exhibited to the jury tending to show that defendant 
admitted in his own handwriting that he had conceived the idea of ' remov-> 
ing the President,' as he called it, six weeks before the shooting ; that 
he had deliherated upon it, and come to the determination to do it, and 
that about two weeks before he accomplished it he stationed himself at 
certain points to do the act, but for some reason was jDrevented. His 
preparation for it by the purchase of a pistol had been shown. 

"All these facts came up to the full measure of proof required to estab- 
lish what the law denominated malice aforethought. The jury would 
view it with disfavor, and public sentiment was hostile to it; nevertheless^ 
if insanity were established to a degree necessary it was a perfect defense 
for an indictment for murder, and must be allowed full weight. It 
would be observed that in this case there was no trouble Avith any ques- 
tion about what might be called total insanity, such as raving mania or 
absolute imbecility, in which all exercise of reason is wanting, and where 
there is no recognition of persons or things or their relations, but there 
was a debatable border left between sanity and insanity. 

" The jury would bear in mind that the man did not become irresponsible 
by the mere fact of his being partially insane, as the law assumed every- 
one at the outset to be sane and reponsible. The question was: what 
was there in this case to show the contrary as to defendant? The jury 
was not warranted in inferring that a man was insane from the mere 
fact of his committing a crime, or from the enormity of the crime, 
because the law presumes there is a bad motive, and that crime is 
prompted by malice if nothing else appears. 

" He had dwelt upon the question of an insane delusion, simply because 
the evidence I'elating to that was evidence touching the deflendant's ])ower, 
61 



802 THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

or ^Yant of power (from mental disease), to distinfrnisli l)et\veon right anu 
wrong, as to an act done by iuni. Tliis was a bmad c]ues:ion for the jury 
to deteriniiie, and was what was relied upon by die deieii.<e. The only 
safe rule, however, was for the jury to direct its attention to tin; one test 
of criminal responsibility, namely, 'whether the j)risoner [)i).^sesse<l mental 
capacity at the time the act was committed to know that it was wrong, 
or whether he was deprived of tliat capacity by mental disease.' There 
was one important distinction which the jury must not lose sight of, and 
they must decide how far it was applicable to this case. That was the 
distinction between mental and moral obliquity; between mental in- 
capacity to distinguish between right and wrong and moial insensibility 
to that distinction." 

The judge, in concluding, said: "And now, gentlemen, to sum up all 1 
have said to you, if you find from the whole evidence that, at the time 
of tlie commission of the homicide, the prisoner was laboring under such 
defect of his reason that he was incapable of understanding what he was 
doing, or seeing it was a wrong thing to do; as, for example, if he was. 
under an insane delusion that the Almighty had commanded him to do 
the act, then he was not in a responsible condition of mind, but was an 
object of compassion, and should be acquitted. If, on the other hand, 
you find he was under no insane delusion, but had possession of his 
faculties, and had power to know his act was wrong, and of his own free 
will he deliberately conceived the idea and executed homicide, then, 
whether his motives were personal vindictiveness. political animosity, 
/lesire to avenge supposed political wrongs, or morbid desire for notoriety ; 
or, if you are unable to discover any motive at all, ihe act is simply murder, 
and it is your duty to find a verdict of guilty as indicted; or [after 
suggestion from Scoville to that effect], if you find the prisoner is not 
guilty by reason of insanity, it is your duty to say so. You will now 
retire to your room and consider your verdict." 

During the delivery of the judge's charge, which was completed at 
4:40 p. M., there was perfect stillness in the crowded court-room, and 
even the prisoner kept absolutely quiet, with the exception of one or two 
feeble interruptions. The jury immediately retired, and many spectators 
left the room. 

After the jury ha^ been out about twenty minutes, recess was taken 
until half-past five o\.lock. Many of the audience, who had virtually 
beca Imprisoned since half-past nine in tho morning, availed themselves 



"GUILTY AS INDICTED.-" 803 

oF tlie opportunity to obtain fresh air and lunch. The prisoner, at his 
tcquest, had been allowed, soon after the jury left the court-room, to 
j-etire to a little room he had occupied since the trial began, as a wait- 
iiig-roorQ, during recess. Before leaving the court-room he evinced con- 
siderable nervousness, but on getting away to comparative seclusion his 
usual comjiosure and assurance soon returned to him. He sent out for 
some apples, with which he treated his attendants, meanwhile chatting 
faiuiliariy and good-naturedly. He was -asked what he thought the jury 
^vould do, and replied; "1 think they will acquit me or disagree, don't 



vou 



Within ten niinules after recess had been taken the jury called to the 
bailitf in waiting that they were ready with their verdict. They were 
informed recess had been taken, and Judge Cox had left the court-room, 
so they remained in their room until court reassembled. 

The rumor that the jury had agi-eed was quickly spread from one to 
another, and the excited crowd surged back into the court-room and 
anxiously awaited what all seemed to expect, a verdict of guilty. 

The musty antique room was devoid of gas, and a score or more of 
-candles which had been placed upon the desks of the judge, counsel, and 
reporters, imparted a weird and fancifully unnatural aspect to the grim 
okl place. Shadows thrown upon the dark background of walls seemed 
3 ike flitting specters, to usher in the somber procession of those who held 
in their bauds the destiny of a human life. First came the prisoner, with 
a quick, nervous step, and as he seated himself in the dock, perhaps for 
the last time, the light of a solitary candle fell full upon his face, and 
disclosed its more than usual pallor. Not a tremor of the limbs or 
movement of muscles of the face was observable, as he threw back his 
head and fixed his gaze upon the door through which the jury were to 
enter. Judge Cox soon afterward took his seat, the crier called 
"Order!" aiid the jury, at 5:35, filed slowly into their seats. Every 
sound was hushed. Save the voice of the clerk, as he propounded to the 
foreman the usual inquiry. Clear and distinct came the reply: 

" We have.'" 

" What is your verdict — gnilty or not guilty ? " 

With equal distinctness ■came the reply, " Guilty as indicted." 

The pent up feelings of the crowd found expression in uproarious 
demonstrations of applause and approval. "Order!" " order !'^ shouted 
the bailiffs Scoville and the counsel for prosecution were simultaneously 



804 THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GIIITEAU. 

upon their feet. Scoville attempted to address the court, but tlie Dis- 
trict Attorney shouted, "Wait till we have the verdict coniple;c and iu. 
due form of hiw." 

Order was at length restored, and the clerk again addressing the jury 
said : 

" Your foreman says guilty as indicted." " So say you all?" 
" We do," all responded. 

Another demonstration of approval followed this announcement, but 
not so prolonged as at first. 

Scoville, still upon his feet, demanded a poll of the jury, which was 
granted, and each juror was called by name, and each promptly responded 
"'Guilty." 

As the last name was called the prisoner shrieked, "My blood ^vill be 
upon the heads of that jury, don't you forget it." 
Scoville again addressed the court, saying : 

'•Your Honor, I do not desire to forfeit any right I may have under 
the law and practice in this District. If there is any thing that I ought 
to do now to save these rights, I would be indebted to your Honor to 
indicate it to me." 

Judge Cox in reply assured him he should have every opportunity; that 
the cliarge would be furnished him in print the next day, and he would be 
accorded all the time allowed by law within which to file his exceptions, 
and that he would also be entitled to four days within which to move in 
arrest of judgment. 

Guiteau (who sat with rigid features and compressed lips) called out in 
tones of desperation : " God will avenge this outrage." 
Judge Cox then turned to the jury and said : 

"Gentlemen of the jury, I can not express too many thanks for the 
manner in which your have discharged you duty. You have richly 
merited the thanks of your countrymen, and I feel assured you will take 
with you to your homes the approval of your consciences. With tl\ankj», 
gentlemen of the jury, I dismiss you.** 

With this announcement the court was declared adjourned. As the 
prisoner was put into the yan, the crowd of men and boys yelled and 
shouted themselves hoarse in mockery of the prisoner's constant boast, 
"The Anieriean press and people are all with me." The van wns quickly 
driven away, followed, till out of sight, by the jeers and yells of the 
crowd. 



SNYDER RAISES A BREEZE. 80o 

Mr. Scovllle availed himself of the earliest opportuni^^y to make 
a motion for a new trial. Scarcely had the smoke of the conflict 
in the court-room cleared away until certain and sundry questions 
were raised by the attorneys for the defense, respecting the valid- 
ity of the proceedings by which Guiteau had been condcnined. 
One of the points first mooted was the old question of the juris- 
diction of the court. Judge Cox had passed upon this matter at 
an early stage of the trial, deciding that the jurisdiction of the 
crime lay in the District courts, and not in those of New Jersey. 
But it was thought by Guiteau's counsel that perhaps the court in 
banc — that is, all the judges sitting together on a case — would re- 
verse Judge Cox's decision. On the second day after the trial 
closed another point was raised which created quite a breeze of 
excitement. A certain Frederick Snyder brought to Mr. Scoville 
a copy of the "Washington Evening Critic, on the margin of which 
were written the names of four or five of the jurymen. He re- 
ported that, lodging at the same hotel where the jury were quar- 
tered, and just opposite their room, his attention was drawn 
thither and that he observed through the open door and lying on 
the table around which the jury assembled the copy of the paper 
bearing their names. The signatures were apparently genuine. 
The paper was a daily, bearing date of that day on which William 
Jones had attempted to shoot Guiteau in the prison van. The 
plain inference was that unless the whole thing were a job, the 
jury had by reading this paper — contrary to the statute and the 
positive injunction of the court — vitiated their whole work. 
Snyder made an affidavit to the truth of his statements, and there 
was a sensation. The names written on the paper were these of 
jurymen Bright, Brandenburg, Heinlin, and Jackson, and besides 
these, the word "Michael," which was by hypothesis the cattle- 
guard of the Hon. Michael Sheehan of Celtic fame. 

For a night the defense seemed to have it. But when the jury- 
men made counter-affidavits that they had never seen a copy of the 
Critic or any other newspaper during the progress of the trial, the 
defense seemed to have it no longer. Meanwhile the " lawyer, 
politician, and theologian," who had been guilty of murdering the 



80G THE LIFE A:rD teial of guiteal*. 

President, sent out, on the morning of January 2Gthy wliat fie was 
pleased to call "An Appeal to the American People." A single 
paragraph will show the tone and style of the document : 

To tJie Anwrican People : 

Twelve men say I wickedly murdered Javnes A. Garfield. They did 
it uu the false notion that I am a disappointed of&ce-seeker. My speech, 
they say, made no iiupressiou ou tliem, I am not surprised at the ver- 
dict, considering tlieir class. They do not pretend to be Christian men, 
and therefore did not appreciate the idea of in.^piration. They are men 
of the world, and of moderate intelligence, and therefore are not capable 
of appreciating the character of my defense. According to one of them, 
"We had grog at each meal and a cigar afler wards," which showed their 
style and habits. 3Ien of this kind can not represent the great Christian 
Kation of America. Had they been high-toned, Christian gentlemen, their 
verdict would have been "Not guilty." 

On the 28th of the month Mr. Scovillc filed with the clerk of 
the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, papers upon which 
he based his motion or motions for a new trial. 

The grounds on which the motion was based were elaborated 
under twelve counts^, of which the most important were those re- 
citing the finding of the newspaper in the jury-room, with the 
names of the members written on the margin, and the allegation 
of new evidence discovered during and after the trial, material in 
its character, and unknown to counsel while the cause was pend- 
ing. The finding of the newspaper was sustained by the affidavit 
of Frederick H. Snyder, and the allegation of new evidence by the 
oath of Mr. Scoville himself. 

After the filing of these affidavits the court appointed February 
3d for the hearing of argument on the motion. At the appointed 
time the matter was taken up and elaborately argued by Mr. 
Scoville for the defense, and by Mr. Davidge and Colonel Corkhill 
for the prosecution. The judge then took the motion under advise- 
ment till the morrow — the day of fate. 

On the morning of the 4th of February the criminal court of the 
District was opened as usual. After a few preliminaries and some 
introductory passages between Mr. Scoville and Colonel Corkhill, 



THE BEGINNING OF THE END. 807 

Judge Cox immediately began to read from manuscript his decision 
upon tlie motion. This decision was listened to with the very 
closest attention by the prisoner, counsel for both sides, and the 
spectators. Tlie occasion was one of the quietest and most impress- 
ive of the whole trial. 

He discussed at some length tlie circumstances attending the finding 
of the newspaper in the room of one of the bailiSs of the jury in the 
case. First, as to the handwriting, there are several circumstances that 
make it impossible that at least; two of the names upon the margin of the 
paper were written by the gentlemen themselves. Second, if, as sug- 
gested, this paper was lying on the table in the bailifT's room, and gen- 
tlemen of the jury in writing in albums first tried their pens upon the 
margin, it would amount to nothing in the face of the sworn affidavits 
of every member of tlie jury that they did not see or read a paper at 
any time during the trial. No one could swear to the fact that the 
jurors did Avrite upon the paper, while they all swear they did not, and 
there is no reason to doubt their veracity. 

So far as the discovery of new evidence is concerned, the evidence to 
be introduced is as to the prisoner's manner and appearance prior to the 
assassination. If there had been no evidence introduced upon this sub- 
ject, there might be some force in the request, but a dozen or more 
witnesses testified on the trial as to his manner and appearance covering 
a period of time from INlarch until tlie commission of the act. The evi- 
dence now sought to be introduced would be merely cumulative, and 
would not affect the verdict. 

As to the expert witness whose admissions after trial are alleged to 
have been different from his evidence given upon trial, Judge Cox said un- 
sworn admissions of this character could never be considered as ground for 
overturning a verdict that may have been obtained through the evidence of 
the very witness who, from a corrupt motive, might seek to reverse a verdict. 

From all the papers presented. Judge Cox summed up: 

" I am unable to find any reason to grant the motion, which is, there- 
fore, overruled." 

Colonel Corkhill at once renewed his motion that the prisoner be 
sentenced. 

Judge Cox (to the prisoner)— Stand up. Have you any thing to say 
why sentence should not now be passed upon you? 

Guiteau — I ask your Honor to postpone sentence as long as possible. 



808 THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

Judge Cox — Stand up. Have you any thing to say Avliy sentence 
should not now be pronounced upon you ? 

The prisoner then arose, jmle, but with lips compressed and desperate 
determination stamped upon his features. In a low and deliberate tone 
]>e began, but soon his manner became wild and violent, and pounding 
upon the table he delivered himself of the following harangue: 

"I am not guilty of the charge set forth in the indictment. It was 
God's act, not mine, and God will take care of it, and don't let the 
American people forget it. He will take care of it, and every officer 
of this Government, from the Executive down to that Marshal, taking in 
every man on that jury, and every member of this bench, will pay for 
it, and the American Nation will roll in blood, if my body goes into the 
ground, and I am hung. The Jews put the despised Galilean in the 
grave. For the time they triumphed; but at the destruction of Jerusa- 
lem, forty years afterwards, the Almighty got even with them. I am 
not afraid of death ; I am here as God's man. Kill me to-morrow if you 
want to; I am God's man, and I have beeu from the start." 

As soon after this vehement outbreak as quiet could be restored, 
the Judge proceeded to pronounce 

THE SENTENCE OF DEATH, 

Addressing the prisoner, his Honor said: 

" You have been convicted of a crime so terrible in its circumstances 
and so far-reaching in its results that it has drawn upon you the horror 
of the whole world and the execrations of your countrynien. The ex- 
citement produced by such an offense made it no easy task to secure for 
you a fixir and impartial trial, but you have had the power of the United 
States Treasury and of the Government in your service to protect your 
person from violence and to procure evidence from all parts of the 
country. 

" You have had as fair and impartial a jury as ever assembled in a 
court of justice. You have been defended by counsel with a zeal and 
devotion that merit the highest encomium, and I certainly have done my 
best to secure a fair presentation of your defense. Notwithstanding all 
this, you have been found guilty. It would have been a comfort to many 
people it* the verdict of the jury had established the fact that your act 
was that of an irresponsible man. It would have left the people the 
satisfying belief that the crime of political assassination was something 



THE SE^^TE^X'E OF DEATH. 809 

entirely foreign to the institutions and civilization of our country. But 
the result has denied them that comfort. The country Avill accept it as 
a fact that the crime can be committed, and the court will have to deal 
•with it with the highest penalty known to the criminal code, to serve as 
an example to others. Your career has been so extraordinary that 
people might well, at tim-'S, have doubted your sanity. But one can not 
but believe that when the crime was committed you thoroughly under- 
stood the nature of tlie crime and its consequences, [Guiteuu — I was 
acting as God's man.] and that you had moral sense and conscience 
euough to recognize the moral iniquity of such an act. [Prisoner — That's 
a matter of opinion.] Your own testimony shows that you recoiled with 
horror from the idea. You say that you prayed against it. You say 
that you thought it might be prevented. This shows that your con- 
science warned you against it, but by the wretched sophistry of your ow-n 
mind you worked yourself up against the protest of your own conscience. 
What motive could have induced you to this act must be a matter of con- 
jecture. Probably men will think that some fanaticism or morbid desire 
for i^elf-exaltation was the real inspiration for the act. Your own testi- 
mony seems to controvert the theories of your counsel. They have main- 
tained, and thought honestly, I believe, that you were driven against 
your will by an insane impulse, lestiniony showed that you deliberately 
resolve(i to do it, and that your deliberate and misguided will was the 
sole impulse. 

"This may seem insanity to some persons, but the law looks upon it as 
a willful crime. You will have due opportunity of having any errors I 
may have committed during the course of the trial, passed upon by the 
court in banc, but meanwhile it is necessary for me to pronounce the 
sentence of the law, that you be taken hence to the common jail of the 
District, from whence you came, and there be kept in confinement, and 
on Friday, the 30th day of June, 1882, you be taken to the place pre- 
pared for the execution, within the walls of said jail, and there, between 
the hours of 12 M. and 2 P. M., you be 

HANGED BY THE NECK UNTIL YOU ARE DEAD, 

and may the Lord have mercy on your soul." 

During the reading, Guiteau stood apparently unmoved, and 
with his gaze riveted upon the Judge, but when the final words were 
spoken, he struck the table violently and shouted, "And ma}' the 



810 THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

Lord have mercy on your soul. I'd rather stand where I do than 
where that jury does, and where your Honor does. I'm not afraid 
to die. I stand here as God's man, and God Ahnighty will curse 
every man who has had a part in procuring this unrighteous ver- 
dict. Nothing but good has come from Garfield's removal, and 
that will be the verdict of posterity on my inspiration. I don't 
care a snap for the verdict of this corrupt generation. I would 
rather a thousand times be in my position than in that of those 
who have hounded me to death. I shall have a glorious flight to 
glory, but that miserable scoundrel, Corkhill, will have a perma- 
nent job down beh)w, where the devil is preparing for him." 

After apparently talking himself into exhaustion, the prisoner 
turned to his brother and without the slighest trace of excitement 
conversed for some minutes before being taken from the court- 
room. He was then immediately conveyed to the jail and put into 
a cell with a guard stationed at the door, after the manner in vogue 
with criminals condemned to death. With the shadows of evening 
the darkness gathered around the place where the wretch lay hid- 
den, and a solemn curtain was drawn between the blasted life of 
Charles Guiteau and the busy scenes of the world. 

After the sentence of the criminal every effort was made to put 
him out of the public thought. The newspapers exhorted one an- 
other to say nothing more about him, and yet each was anxious to 
obtain and publish the latest intelligence of the prisoner and his 
doings. According to the sentence of the Court, four months and 
twenty-six days were to intervene before the execution. During 
this time hardly any issue of the daily press appeared without some 
reference to Guiteau's words, actions, or prospects. One of the 
first sensations Avas his break with Mr. Scoville. The latter, it 
will be remembered, had from the first adopted a theory of the 
crime against which Guiteau had protested. After Scoville's 
defense had failed, the assassin upbraided him with the failure, and 
indulged in such torrents of abuse that the mutual aversion be- 
tween the two became an abyss. Scoville was dismissed by the 
ingrate, and was glad to be relieved of the thankless burden 
which he had borne for several months. Mr. Charles H. Eccd 



THE EXECUTION. 811 

remain2d as sole counsel for the condemned, and on him was 
devolved the hopeless task of saving his client's neck from the halter. 

Mr. Reed set about the work before him with sagacity and 
earnestness. His first step was an appeal to the court in banc — 
that is, to the full bench of which Judge Cox was a member. 
This appeal was made, was heard, and — failed. The next step 
was the more important one of an appeal to the Supreme Court 
of the United States. The basis on which the petition was filed 
was the old question of the jurisdiction of the Court which had 
tried the cause. This appeal,* like the other, %va3 heard and — 
failed. The last step of all was to sue out a writ of habeas corpus 
before the same tribunal. There were apprehensions that this 
writ would be granted, and several rumors were set afloat that 
such an issue might be expected, but it was none the less refused, 
and the last hope of the assassin, so far as legal interference was 
concerned, perished. There remained only the vague belief on the 
part of himself and counsel that the President would interfere on 
the score of Guiteau's possible — perhaps probable — insanity. This 
hope, if hope it might be called, was also destined to be blasted; 
for whatever the President might have felt or believed respecting 
the sanity or insanity of the murderer of his predecessor, he could 
not well have interfered even to save an irresponsible wretch 
from the clutches of the American people who had determined 
that he should die. To have done so might have been the act of 
a wise man and philosopher, but would have hardly been an act 
of that sort of political sagacity which consists in allowing public 
prejudice to have its way, right or wrong. Albeit, the class of 
statesmen who esteem the judgment of posterity above the ruling 
caprice of the hour is an extinct race. The bones of the giants 
are buried in the debris of the pleiocene. 

So Guiteau was left to hang. It was only a question of time. 
Th3 weeks rolled into months, and the assassin's life narrowed to 
a hand-breadth. The summer came in ; the people waited im- 
patiently for the " hangin'," and the newspapers got ready to sell 
a big edition. What is a wretched human life in comparison with 
the sale of a big edition? 



812 THE LIFE AND TEIAL OF GUITEAU. 

The gallows upon which Guiteau was to suffer death was erected 
at the end of one of the corridors of the jail. It was arranged 
that only a limited number of spectators should be admitted to 
witness the final tragedy. As the time drew near there was very 
little change in the demeanor of the condemned man. Dr. Hicks, 
a Baptist clergyman, became his attendant and spiritual adviser. 
Guiteau protested constantly that he was " God's man," and that 
he had been "inspired" to shoot the President. Dr. Hicks soon 
became convinced that the assassin was an insane man, and made 
unwearied efforts to deliver him from the jaws of death. He 
went frequently to the President, as did also the brother, John W. 
Guiteau, with the hope of securing a respite or commutation, but 
all to no purpose. The man who did the deed of the 2d of July 
must pay for it with his life. 

With the coming of the 30th of June, Washington City was in 
a fever of excitement. Congress was no longer a " counter attrac- 
tion." The jail was now the center of interest. All the "lewd 
fellows of the baser sort " were out in full glory. An execution is 
always a red-letter day for roughs and criminals. The thoughtful 
man who gives himself to productive pursuits or professional labor 
turns away from the scene with disgust or horror. 

During Guiteau's last night on earth he was somewhat restless, 
but slept at intervals. In the morning he arose as usual, and 
prepared to go to his doom. Just before the execution the scene 
outside the jail was a study, and a fitting commentary upon the 
morbid nature of the human race. The jail itself is flanked in 
front by a hill, running probably half a mile, left there by the 
march, of improvement when the roadway was cut away. Upon 
this were perched hundreds of people, male and female, black and 
white, young and old. Mothers, even, with babes in their arms, 
sat in the direct rays of the noonday sun. On either side of the 
level of the roadway there were thousands of people of both 
sexes. Here, too, had been extemporized booths for beer, lemonade, 
fruits and nuts. The crowd had no possible chance to see or hear 
what was going on, but even hours after the hanging lurked 
around. The direct road leading to the jail is lined with houses 



THE EXECUTION ' 813 

In which the lower classes live. The occupants had {jv months 
seen the prison van which bore Guitcau during his trial to and 
from the jail as it passed and repassed. The small windows of 
these houses were black with people, watchinp; with interest the 
cavalcade of carriages on their way to the scene of dcatli. Im- 
mediately surrounding the jail there was, of course, the usual 
crowd, who, having no right, sought to gain admission by any pre- 
text. Not a few were insolent and drunk. To keep back such as 
pressed upon those in charge of the admissions, thirty mounted 
policemen were on guard. The crowd was good humored, how- 
ever, and the badinage over the tragedy about to be enacted was 
any thing but complimentary to him who was to be its central 
figure. Meanwhile the sun reflected its meridian rays, and the 
wind bore to the breeze clouds of dust. Ladies had fainting spells, 
the babies cried. Still all had come to stay, and so they did until 
long after the death of the assassin. 

The execution had been fixed according to custom to take j>!ace 
between the hours of twelve noon and two P. M. By nine o'clock 
in the forenoon hundreds, perhaps thousands of people liad 
assembled. Meanwhile, Rev. Mr. Hicks was in and out of 
Guiteau's cell during the morning, and at nine o'clock the prisoner 
informed him that he had prepared a programme of exercises on 
the scaffold, which he wanted carried out. The exercises embraced 
a prayer, or dying address, the reading of the tenth chapter of 
Matthew, and a ** poem " which he had composed in the morning, 
entitled "Childlike Simplicity; or, Religious Baby Talk." At 
the conclusion of the reading he desired the trap to be sprung. Ho 
especially requested that the procession leave his cell precisely at 
twelve M., the signal to be the blowing of the noonday whistle from 
the Alms-house, a few squares distant. Mr. Hicks said he saw no 
objection to this programme, and so informed Warden Crocker, 
who took the same view, and at once sent a message to the Alms- 
house authorities, asking them to delay the blowing of the whistle 
until 12:20 P. M., as it would not be convenient for him to start 
the procession before that time. 

At his last interview before leaving the cell for the scaffold, the 



814 THE lllFE AND TRIAL OP GUITEAU. 

minister reported that Guiteau still held to his inspiration theory, 
and was vociferous in declaring that he was God's man, and that 
the American Nation would go down in blood for his " murder." 

A few minutes after twelve, Warden Crocker, the Rev. Mr. 
Hicks, and several other gentlemen, now entered Guiteau's cell, 
when General Crocker read the death warrant, to which Guiteau 
paid resj)ectful attention, simply remarking at the close, "It's 
all right." About ten minutes later the arrangements were com- 
pleted, and the hour of retribution struck. The half dozen persons 
in and about the cell passed out with Guiteau in the midst going to 
his death. They passed across the corridor, ascended a flight of 
steps, and stood upon the gallows. Here Rev. Mr. Hick's deliv- 
ered a brief prayer, and then there was a slight shuffle and change 
of positions preparatory to the final act. Then Guiteau read the 
Scrii)tures, his own selection, the tenth chapter of Matthew, from 
the twenty-eighth to the forty-first verses. He read in a loud 
rhetorical way the words : 

" Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the 
soul; but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and 
body in hell." 

He went on without a tremor or any audible sign of emotion to 
the end. It was an extraordinary scene. Hicks held the book 
which the murderer's pinioned arms would not allow him to take, 
just opposite his breast and close to it, and Guiteau read it, not 
with his eyes pinned to it, but generally looking straight in front 
of him. As he went on the reason for his selection appeared. It 
seemed as if he had been pleased to find a comprehensive curse, 
which included a particular allusion to Scoville and Scoville's 
domestic difficulties, and a proper rebuke* for Scoville's efforts to 
befriend him. 

When he had finished this reading he advanced a little to the 
front and announced his 

DYING PRAYER ON THE GALLOWS, 

As follows: 

" My dying prayer on the gallows. Father, now I go to Thee 
and the Savior. I have finished the work Thou gavest me to do. 



THE EXECUTION. 



815 



and am only too happy to go to Thee. The world does not yet 
appreciate my mission, but Thou knowest it. Thou knowest Thou 
didst inspire Garfield's removal, and only good has come from it. 
This is the best evidence that the inspiration came from Thee, and 
I have set it forth in my book, that all men may read and may 
know that Thou, Father, did inspire the act for which I am 
murdered. This Government and Nation I know by this act will 
incur Thy eternal enmity, as did the Jews by killing Thy man, my 
Savior. The retribution in that case came quick and sharj) ; and I 
know Thy Divine law of retribution will strike this Nation and my 
murderers in the same way. The diabolical spirit of this Nation, 
its Government, and its newspapers toward me will justify Thee in 
cursing them, and I know that the divine law of retribution is 
inexorable. I, therefore, predict this nation will go down in blood, 
and my murderers, from the Executive to the hangman, will go to 
hell. Thy laws arc inexorable, O Thou Supreme Judge! Woe 
unto men that violate Thy laws! Only weeping and gnashing of 
teeth awaits them. The American press has a large bill to settle 
with Thee, righteous Father. For their vindictiveness in this 
matter nothing but blood will satisfy them ; and now my blood be 
on them, and on this Nation and its officials. Arthur, the Presi- 
dent, is a coward and an ingrate. His ingratitude to the man that 
made him and saved his party and the land from overthrow has no 
parallel in history. But Thou, righteous Father, will judge him. 
Father, Thou knowest me, but the world hath not known me ; and 
now I go to Thee and the Savior without the slightest ill-will 
toward a human being. Farewell, ye men of earth." 

At several points he had paused and endeavored to impart 
increased emphasis to his words by a peculiar facial expression so 
often observed during the trial when he was angered at something 
which was said or done. This was peculiarly noticeable when he 
alluded to President Arthur, and when he declared that this 
Nation would " go down in blood." 

HIS LAST " POEM." 

When he had finished reading his prayer he again surveyed the 



816 THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

crowd, and said, still with a firm voice, " I am now going to read 
some verses which are intended to indicate my feelings at the 
moment of leaving this world. If set to music they may be 
rendered elFective. The idea is that of a child babbling to his 
mamma and his papa. I wrote it this morning about ten o'clock." 
He then commenced to chant these verses in a sad, doleful style ; 

I am going to the Lordy, 

I am so glad. 

J am going to the Lordy, 

I am so glad. 

I am going to the Lordy ; 

Glory, hallelujah, 

Glory, hallelujah, 

1 am going to the Lordy. 
I love the Lordy with all my soul ; 

Glory, hallelujah ; 
And that is the nason I am going to the Lord, 
Glory, hallelujah, glory, hallelujah, 

I am going to the Lord. 

Here Guiteau's voice failed, and he bowed his head and broke 
into sobs, but he rallied a little and went on with his chant: 

I saved my party and my land, 
Glory hallelujah. 
But they have murdered me for it, and that is the reason I am going to the Lordy. 
Glory hallelujah, glory hallelujah, 
I am going to the Lordy. 

Here again his feelings overcame him, and he leaned his head 
on the shoulder of Dr. Hicks and sobbed pitifully. Still he 
went on: 

I wonder what I will do •when I get to the Lordy. 
I guess I will weep no more when I get to the Lordy. 
Glory hallelujah 1 

Here there was another interruption, caused by sobs and 
emotions, which he was unable to repress. He wept bitterly, and 
then, with quivering lips and moanful tones, he finished his ditty : 

T wonder what I will see when I get to the Lordy? 

I f'xpect to see most splendid things, beyond all earthly conception. 

When I am with the Lordy. 

Glory, hallelujah 1 
[Raising his voice to the highest pitch that he could command] — 
Glory, hallelujah! 1 am with the Lord. 



THE EXECUTION. 817 

This' closed the chant; and then Rev. Mr. Hicks gave Guiteau 
his final benediction and farewell, saying : " God, the Father, be 
with thee, and give thee peace for evermore." 

Immediately afterwards one of the attendants stooped down and 
pinioned his legs, and the group on the scaffold closed around him, 
apparently to shake hi's pinioned hands. A loud, strong " ready!" 
in Guiteau's voice. Then Mr. Hicks laid his hand upon the 
murderer's head. Then the noose and the black cap, and a loud 

"glory, glory, glory!" 
From behind it. Then a faint "ready!" from Guiteau, and a 
pause of — seconds were minutes. Guiteau dropped the permeated 
white paper, the trap came down, and the body of Charles Jules 
Guiteau dangled in the air. The stigma of political assassination 
was fixed forever with the indelible dye of blood on the escutcheon 
of the United States. The voice of reason has been drowned in a 
clamor. Thoughtful men have been afraid to speak their convic- 
tions. The Future will tell the truth.* 

It is not the time, not the occasion, to discuss the correctness of 
the decree by which the murderer of Garfield has been doomed to 
the gibbet. A few words, however, may be appropriately added ; 

First. Hon. Walter S. Cox has come through the trying ordeal 
without the smell of fire on his garments. It was his business to 
interpret, not to make, the law. This duty he performed without 
fear or favor. He took the abuse of the American press as a just 
judge always meets calumny — with silence and contempt. When 
the vile maligners who have denounced him are as dead as the 
jackals that followed Bouillon to Palestine, this just man will be 
mentioned with honor. 

Second. The same may be said, in their several measures, of 
the jurymen. They gave good attention during the long trial. At 
times they entertained doubts of the prisoner's sanity ; but as the 
cause drew to a close, the conviction settled upon them more and 
more that the intellectual faculties of the man in the dock were too 

» At the autopsy of Guiteau's body his brain was found to be in a healthy con- 
dition, but the membranes were found inflamed, and there were very notice? 
depositions of Ivmpli. No anatomist of national reputation was present. 

52 



818 THE LIFE AND TRIAL OF GUITEAU. 

clear and incisive to put him in the catalogue of the irresponsible. 
They found accordingly, under the law. It was an honest verdict. 

Third. As to the attorneys, the counsel for the defense appear 
to a much better advantage than those for the prosecution. The 
general conduct of Messrs. Scoville and Reed was irreproachable. 
So much can not be said for Messrs. Corkhill and Porter. Mr. 
Davidge is seen in better light. Mr. Reed made the best argument ; 
Judge Porter, the most effective speech. Mr. Scoville deserves 
great credit. He managed the case admirably, except always the 
prodigious folly of interjecting a political tirade into his argument. 

Fourth. As to Guiteau, he had a shrewd, somewhat incisive, 
erratic, badly balanced intellect. Considered merely as to his in- 
tellectual faculties, he was not insane. But viewed in the light of 
his moral faculties, he was insane. 

HE IS A MORAL IDIOT. 

That is the exact definition of the man. He had no power to 
discover moral relations. The nature of a human being is not 
merely mental; it is moral also. It implies not merely the 
power to discern the relations of things, but also discovers the 
idea of obligation and supplies the motives of right action. The 
former, Guiteau had; the latter, he had not. He was as devoid 
of a conscience as a cave-fish is devoid of eyes. He was a moral 
iJiot — not, as some have said, a moral monster. Considered merely 
in the light of his want of moral power and discernment, it was as 
illogical to execute Guiteau as it is to kill a cave-fish for not 
seeing. 

Fifth. As to the crime itself, considered in its origin and nature. 
The cause of the murder of President Garfield is not to be found 
wholly in the criminal himself He was in part, at least, the 
instrument of a larger force. Society does not like to be told 
of her faults, and party is always willing to make a scapegoat of 
the individual. Guiteau's bullet, then, to speak it plainly, was 
the logical conclusion of a syllogism lying partly outside of his own 
depraved organism. To say that this astounding crime was the 
result of the malicious spite of a disappointed office-seeker is to 



CONCLUDING EEFLECTIONS. B19 

speak but half the truth. Why, then, did Guiteau shoot the Presi- 
dent? Negatively, it may be said that it was not a piece of indi- 
vidual revenge — at least, not wholly the venomous work of per- 
sonal hate. Much less is the murder of Garfield to be attributed 
to the break in the Republican party and the consequent hostile 
array of Senator Conkling's following against the administration. 
The bitterness of this feud has been greatly exaggerated. To 
charge the supporters of General Grant in the Chicago Convention 
with the destruction of the President's life is, not to use harsher 
terms in describing it, foolish, superficial, false. It would be 
utterly impossible to put the index on a single act or word of any 
leading Stalwart which was calculated to precipitate an assassin on 
the President or his friends. The illustrious statesmen who have 
adhered to the political fortunes of General Grant are not of that 
sort. What, then, was the ulterior force which, acting upon the 
depraved, perhaps diseased, imagination of Guiteau, induced the 
perpetration of this diabolical deed? It was simply the malig- 
nant TONE OF POLITICAL DISCUSSION IN THE UnITED StATES. 

It was the poisonous breath of that political rancor which, like 
the simoon of the desert, blasts all life and destroys all beauty. 
The politician who, unable to answer an argument, denounces his 
opponent as a villain and a liar, and the small editor who with 
every form of contumelious speech befouls the name of our noblest 
statesman, are the men who, next after Guiteau himself, are guilty 
of the blood of Garfield. The average campaign newspaper is a 
disgrace to the age and nation. It is filled with precisely that 
kind of material which appeals to the uncurbed passions of a half- 
crazed assassin. It must be understood that the fool is a logician. 
He draws conclusions. He makes a practical application of the 
principle which he deduces from the premises. When the slander- 
mongering politician tells him that a certain public man is a 
villain, an ambitious conspirator against the liberties of the people, 
he draws the conclusion that such a man is essentially bad, and 
that he should be killed for the good of the country — and he does it. 
Guiteau was one of these logical fools who deduced a conclusion 
and enforced it with a bullet. As long as there are men base 



820 THE LIFE AND TKIAL OF GUITEAU. 

enough to denounce such a man as Garfield as a sconndrel and 
thief, so long will the lives of our statesmen be endangered bv 
the pistol of the assassin. 

Sixth. As to the law. Guiteau was condemned on the side of 
his intellectual perceptions. The English law of insanity, as nearly 
us it may be defined, is this : " ^yhe^e there is a total defect of the 
understanding there is no free act of the will in the choice of 
things or actions, and hence no crime." The inferential side of 
this proposition is of course this : " Where there is not a total 
defect of the understanding there is a free act of the will in the 
choice of things or actions, and hence crime." Between these two 
extremes there is no middle ground recognized in the English law ; 
and the American law follows the same principle. The Code Na- 
poleon says: "iZ ii'y a ni crime ni delit lorsque le prevenu etait en 
etat de demence (a crime or misdemeanor is impossible in one 
demented), which is virtually the same as the English statute. The 
question of a man's moral idiocy is nowhere considered, and there- 
fore nothing short of " a total defect in the understanding " may 
be successfully pleaded as insanity. Under this severe principle 
Guiteau was tried and condemned. His sentence is just, accord- 
ing to the law. In the process of civilization a graduated scale 
of penalties will be adapted to the varying grades of crime as deter- 
mined by the intellectual and moral capacity of the criminal. For 
the present, thoughtful and humane men will have to be contented 
with the rude approximations of justice whose hinder parts, still 
held in barbarism, cling to the hill-side of the Past, like Milton's 

" Tawny lion pawing to get free." 

Society, in her righteous but undiscriminating anger, persisted 
in sending this shrewd moral idiot to the gallows ; but the Future 
with equal persistency will write on his accursed gravestone 

WAS HE INSANE? 



'-fidgTp 



